"I'm dreaaming of a WET...Christmas!"

"I'm dreaaming of a WET...Christmas!" 

Well hey, it's a reality over here so you no longer have to dream about it;) 

Hey all!! Merry Christmas! 

It's been a pretty decent week this week. 

Things here in Chelmsley Wood are coming along slow but steady! 

Let us start earlier in the week. :)

Last Monday we tracted into this atheist guy and had a very long, 

deep conversation with him.

 (About an hour and a half. Felt like 10 minutes though!). 

His main point, (along with many atheists)

 was why would a loving God in heaven just sit back and allow 

terrible suffering to happen to people. Which is a very fair question to ask! 

We of course tried to lead into agency and the plan of salvation.

 He brought up some fair points that we honestly did not know how to answer.

 We did bear powerful testimony to him.

 It was cool though, because towards the beginning of talking with him, 

he was absolutely "no, you will not sway me. You can't ever come back." 

By the end of talking with him, we got his phone number, 

gave him a Book of Mormon and a Plan of Salvation pamphlet, 

set up another time to come by, and we were all

laughing together and joking around a bit!

 It was great. :) 

It was cool to see how his attitude changed about the whole thing.

There truly is so much joy that comes from serving the Lord!! 

 He truly does bless us for it. We are crazy lucky to have the
knowledge that we have. If you think about all the different religions
out there, ours has the full truth!! It's so great,, :) You just
deepen your appreciation for the gospel on the mission and you
experience it all firsthand. I was reading today about Amulek and Alma
after they taught Zeezrom. It sounded especially rough for Amulek.
Shortly after his conversion, he served that mission with Alma where
they were persecuted, bashed, physically and verbally abused, he lost
all his money and home, his own father and family disowned him. Talk
about trying the faith of the righteous man!! Amulek went through all
of that when he was trying his best to do what was right. He is truly
a hero. When you think about people like Amulek and especially the
Saviours own suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane, all your problems
just naturally start to diminish. And then you feel bad that you ever
thought your "problems" were problems. 

Man, I just love the gospel:)

Wednesday, we had a zone conference in Leicester. 

It was 3 zones: Nottingham, Coventry, and Leicester. 

I was able to see friends from Leicester and Notts!:) 

Thursday we had a zone Christmas Eve party in Coventry! 

That was pretty fantastic! It was rough traveling there

though. We had to bike to the station

 (which was a headwind, uphill, and rain bullets in the eyeballs).

And then we took the bikes with us so we could bike to the Coventry chapel.

 Pretty crazy experience! Haha:) But it was fun.

Then it was Christmas!! It was a fun day. 

I played Christmas hymns for the church service on Christmas morning. 

Which, by the way, the Christmas service on Christmas morning

 was a great way to start off the day! 

It started at10:30am and we read Christmas poems and sang

Christmas carols. It was a good way to start the day focusing on the

true meaning of Christmas. :) We then went to the Morleys for lunch.

After "Christmas Dinner" there, we played games with them

 (Rummikub and Uno) Then in the late afternoon, 

we went to bishops house for Skype!! 

That was so fun to talk with the fam! :D It was nice to catch

up with them and to actually hear their voices again! Then we

spent the rest of the night at the Gates home playing some 

Disney Trivia.

Turns out Saturday was another Pday for us 

because it was Boxing Day or something. So that was nice! :) 

Not a super eventful week to be honest. 

A lot of people here just do not want to talk to you on the

days leading up to Christmas, and if they do and are slightly

interested, they tell you to contact them after the New Year. Haha We

have found some new people to teach, 

but won't be able to see them until after the New Year.

That's about it honestly! The ward is still pretty cool! They feed us

well here so I might get a little bit fat. Haha;)

 Pack it on for the winter! 

Speaking of, it's not too cold yet....which is very unusual

for here! It'll probably drop in temp soon though. Anyways, that's

about it folks! Hope you had a great Christmas! 

Enjoy Star Wars for me! :..( 

Love ya tons! 

Cheers mates.

Elder Wright

Happy Christmas From Across The Pond

Hey there! So, you are probably wondering where I am right now. 

I will tell you that I am no longer in Nottingham... Sad days. 

A goodbye photo with Oz.

I was only there for 4 weeks! But hey...oh well. 

So! Let me break the news to ya. 

Get ready for this....hahaha. I'm in a small-ish town outside of
Birmingham called Chelmsley Wood! 

And, guess what....I'M WHITEWASHING AGAIN! 

I'm starting to wonder what I did in the pre-existence

 to deserve this. Hahaha! ;) Nah, it's not that bad, white washing. 

It's kinda fun actually! This is my third time whitewashing. 

Elder Smith (my last companion) got called to be a trainer 

so I was moved out of there. 

I'm whitewashing with someone from my group again! 

 Elder Hill is his name. Interesting lad. But yeah. 

Let's just say this may be a looong transfer. And, it's a 7 week transfer. 

Goodbye picture with Elder Smith and the Sisters at

 Ward Correlation Meeting.

Chelmsley Wood doesn't have the best reputation apparently...but, I've
found that its not as bad as people were saying! :) 

Some of the nicknames of Chelmsley Wood include: 

Chelmsley Hood, 

Chav-sley Hood
(if you don't know what a chav is, look it up. Haha), 

Chelmsley Weed.
 Oh, and do you remember that story of the bishop here in
England that got mugged and ran over?.....that's the 

Bishop of our ward here!! Pretty crazy stuff. :)

The huge bonus of Chelmsley Wood is that the ward is FANTASTIC!

 So far, they have all been really cool people:) 

The ward consists of 3 major families. The ward is pretty small though. 

There's probably about 50 or more that were at church. But yeah! 

Bishop is kind of sensitive about the whole situation 

that happened with him and doesn't like to bring it up.

 But, he is so cool! He's a convert of about 6 years. 

We went to his house for lunch on Sunday. 

First thing, we go into his house and he puts Lord of the Rings

 music on quietly in the background. 

It was so cool! The ward mission leader is great. 

We met him the second day we got here and he took us out to 

put flyers in doors for a Christmas carol concert on Sunday. 

He's way focused on the work and it's really cool! 

It's always nice when you have a good ward mission leader. :)
We're hoping to turn this area around. The past missionaries
 slacked (Bishop was like, "I won't say much, but I will say this.
I'm glad that they're gone.") So, we're hoping to get the work
here going along! It's rough too, because the past Elders 

didn't do a great job keeping the area book up to date either.

 I feel like we may be doing a lot of member work and less active work. 

That was one of Bishop's vision; bringing back a lot of the less actives.
There's a family here, the Gates, that are just awesome!! 

They're all very musically inclined and they did a cool instrumental

 piece at the ward Christmas carol concert. 

The dad was on the guitar, mom on the penny whistle, 

daughter on violin, daughter on the accordion, and
future son in law on the bass. 

They played a cool folk Christmas song.
It was so cool!!  And, they all play a thousand different instruments.
I'm excited because we'll be at their place Christmas evening. Yes! :)

This is a video of looking out my window.

That's about it!

Thanks for all the support back home. Truly! I love ya guys! :) 

Hope your week rocks! Happy Christmas from across the pond.

 Cheers.

Elder Wright

Merry almost Christmas!

                                            Hey guys! Merry almost Christmas! :) 

This is just the best time of

year...I mean cmon! I love it!

(Gotta feel bad for the J Dubs!) 

Us looking fly in our British suits.

This week was a good week. On fast Sunday last week, 

we fasted that we might be able to find more opportunities 

to teach people and have lessons.

We definitely have seen improvement in that aspect! :)

We were able to meet with a guy named Scott. 

This guy is elect. 

He has been taught the lessons a ton in the past 

and knows a lot about the church. 

His wife is a member (less active though).

 He was interviewed in the past for baptism but it didn't work 

out because he was living with his girlfriend. 

But, now they are married so that's taken care of! 

We met with him and had a good lesson, 

committed him to be baptized on January 2nd! 

The only issue is he is a very busy man

with work and everything so it's just a matter of being able to

quickly go through the lessons with him. 

He was at church and he seems pretty excited for his date!! 

It makes me very happy. :)

Nottingham.

Throughout the week, we were able to get some number 

of lessons on doorsteps while tracting. 

Tracting...it's not as bad as some make it to be!

 We will also play games and stuff while doing it 

to make it fun. :) 

One game we play is; you have to guess what the person 

will look like based on what you see around their yard. 

You never know what you're gonna get behind that door!! 

Hahaha! It's pretty great though. :)

And then of course, there are always....ALWAYS the rude ones.

 But hey!

Also, some weird people behind those doors. 

Spiritualists, witches, fat hairy shirtless men

 (which actually turn out to be new investigators! Haha), 

the ones that just stare at you with wide eyes for like 5

seconds and then shut the door. 

Then there are the more traditional religious people you meet. 

Atheist ("There is no proof!") 

Pantheist ("God is nature and the universe") 

Born Again ("Oh I've been saved for 8 years now") 

CofE ("We're pretty set in our roots") 

Muslim ("Not interested.") 

Oh, the fun people you meet on the mission. I love it!

On Saturday, it didn't stop raining all day. We had our

waterproofs on and still....you just kind of have to accept it. 

Accept your fate! You're gonna be wet. Haha :) 

That day was full of being cold and wet but it was our most successful day.

 It was so much fun!

We'd be going door to door, doing our thing, all wet. Then we'd just

be like, "Man, what are we doing?? We're so crazy!" Haha 

And then continue on our way, making it fun! :)

I finally got a bike!! Yes! For those that didn't know, my last bike got

broken through the transfer process. The mission home had a spare

that they gave me. It ain't great but it gets the job done! 

I am so grateful for bikes.

Let me tell you....it is just so much more efficient than walking! 

Whoever invented the wheel...bless your heart.

 Walking to the store to shop used to be like 35 min. one way.

 To bike, it's like 15 min. And downhill on the way back. :D

 That's fun flying down English hills on a bike! Mmm..

We had the Christmas ward party on Saturday which was pretty fun! 

The music was super loud and it was hard to hear people talking.

But there were some funny games being played! 

Here is a video of one of the games. So funny! But yeah:)

The Lord very much did bless us with a good week this past week!

 And I am ever so grateful for it. 

The mission thus far has been the greatest thing ever. 

Seriously. If you're considering it...DO IT. 

Coolest thing ever. Hardest thing ever....but also the coolest. :) 

Thank you guys so much for all the support! 

Love ya tons. 

Peace be unto thine souls.

Cheers:)

Elder Wright

We went to a chippie just down the road

Hey there!! How's it been?? 

Funny story! The is Sister Lowder. 

She is from where my Aunt and Uncle live!

Small world in the church!

Nottingham has been pretty good! 

Kind of windy lately to be honest. Temperature is starting to drop again. 

But it has been amazingly nice the past week as far as weather goes!

 It's December and it might as well be summer!

 (Now watch...a giant snowstorm or something will come tomorrow) 

But Christmas here is going strong.

I have officially been on my mission for 4 months. 

Crazy beans? Yes! It's gone by way to fast. 

I can't even believe it. I love the mission! :)

This week has been pretty decent! 

We've been trying to have more street lessons with people. 

If we can teach any kind of doctrine and say a prayer, it counts as a lesson. 

That's one thing our ward mission leader has been pushing us to do. 

To have more street lessons and it's been going alright!:) 

This week we're going to be doing more member stop bys in the evenings.

 Tracting and GQing are less effect after 7pm. I'm way excited about that! 

We are going to start to fellowship the ward a little more. 

 We have decided our area just isn't good for GQing in town centre. 

In fact, it's pretty terrible. But, we have surprisingly found a lot of success tracting!

 So, that's been pretty cool:)

Oh man, it was funny. 

We have been improving a lot with our lessons. 

Meaning, people were actually keeping their appointments.

But one day, 3 lessons were no shows and 

when it came time for dinner, we showed up and the family

 totally forgot and told us to come another day. 

As we were walking back, Elder Smith said, 

"Man, three lessons and a flogged DA!"

Hahaha! We were laughing about that.

 It was totally opposite to what 

had been happening in the past week:P So funny!

We're having a lot of fun together! It's been a blast! 

We laugh a lot. (Maybe even too much) 

We are always trying to find the funny in all situations! 

One night we had been tracting for a while. We went

up to the next door, and I knock and then step back and just hear

this *crunch*.  I wondered for a bit. Like, "What could that have been??"

I figured it was plastic or something. Then I looked down and beheld

tiny snail remains all crushed and smeared over. 

 Apparently my face just dropped after I realized it was a baby snail.

 Then we laughed for like 5 minutes. Just random things like that 

happen all the time on the mission! In the moment, it's hilarious. 

It's hard to explain it. But sometimes the little silly

 things make you so happy!

We quote movies a lot. Well...mainly two movies. 

Knight and Day and Remember the Titans. Such classics:) 

It's a lot of fun! 

We went suit shopping last Monday with our district leader

 at a shop called Slaters. They were being tailored and we returned 

Thursday before district meeting to pick them up.

 We looked pretty fly as we were walking with our new 

British suits through town. Haha;) That was fun.

I went on exchange with Elder Mordue to Boston. 

It's about a 2 hour drive from here. That was fun! 

We were able to go by less actives that day. 

Then later in the evening, we had a lesson with one of their investigators. 

It went super well! 

We taught the simple truths of faith and repentance to her.

 It was fantastic! We followed the Spirit and resolved some things with her. :)

 That was a ton of fun. We then went to the flat later

 for dinner (around 8) to finish off the day. 

We cooked some pasta bake and had a dodge fest!

 (Dodge is "deep doctrine") 

It was nice to be able to teach the simple truths of the

gospel to their investigator and it was also nice to have a little

reward of dodge later on. Hahaha :) 

The next day for lunch, we went to a chippie just down the

road from their flat. The owner knows all the

missionaries that have come through Boston. 

He's so good to missionaries!! When we went there, 

we ordered a large cod and large chips. 

He started throwing on the chips, scoop after scoop,

 pile after pile. He was like "tell me when to stop!" 

After the pile was just too big to bare, he slapped a giant piece of cod 

over the top, poured on salt and vinegar and wrapped it in paper.

 It was originally going to be £7 but he was like 

"For you guys, we will make it £5" hahaha!

 It was so great. We walked off and we're just like "Bless that man!"

 It was so much food though. Both of us 

(even with how hungry we were) could not finish it all. 

Best fish and chips I've had...by far.

Diabetes? Probably. Delicious? Most definitely. :)

So yeahhh. Things are purdy good!

 It was a good week. :) Not much else to say really. 

I hope all is well!

 I will report back in a week from now.

 Cheers!

Elder Wright

"Ahhhhh yeah! Cadbury here we come!"

Hello!! 

Things are going alright here in Nottingham! :) 

We are trying to get something rolling! But yeah, it's good. :) 

Let me tell ya. The weather is soooo weird here!

 It was crazy cold a couple days earlier in the week, then it warmed up a ton. 

It's just now starting to drop down again. Haha Craziness! 

I experienced some misting and some down poor rain. It's very windy. 

It's not AS depressing as I just made it sound though. ;D haha

There were some cool stuff and some less cool stuff this week. 

We'll start with the good! 

One day we decided to do some member stop bys in a certain 

area and then tract in the area. 

We wanted to hopefully get to know the members better!

 We stopped by this family and had some good conversation with them! 

At the end, they told us of a recent convert that was feeling kinda down. 

There had been some bad rumours spread about her. :( 

So, we decided to go straight to her house and talk with her right away! 

At first, she seemed pretty down and depressed. 

We managed to get to know her more and we talked about things. 

Anyways, we ended up reminding her of her baptism and how she felt. 

We taught her about strength in trials through Jesus Christ. 

By the end, she seemed a little brighter and uplifted! It was way cool:) 

And she ended up coming to church which was way cool! :) 

That was a good day. After we got home, we planned 

and then I just crashed on my bed. Still in my clothes. Haha

Another good thing! 

The sisters had a baptism this weekend! Jackie is her name. :) 

She was taught by the Elders but after the transfer, she was given to the sisters. 

That was a way cool experience!....as baptisms usually are. :) 

It's always cool to see people enter the waters of baptism!

Now for the less cool stuff!

We got bashed on the phone! Yeah. Interesting right? 

Let me tell ya bout it. 

We found a potential last week. We tried calling him up and set up a time to meet. 

He rang us one day when we were in town centre. 

He said, "share with me your message." 

(This is all on the phone) We start teaching him the Restoration. 

We talked about prophets and immediately he says,

 "I thought your message was centred on Christ." 

Then just from there, he was going to town using all sorts of 

references from the Bible. We tried to salvage it a little, 

but it didn't work. We testified and that's really all we could do. 

Haha Interesting though! 

There have been days where you just walk a bunch and tract 

a bunch and nothing comes from it. :/ 

But, the bad days make you appreciate the good ones much more that's for sure!

Another....interesting...story. 

 We were walking home one night when an old guy, all alone, 

stopped us and asked us a question. 

His words were slurred. The combination of being old, slurred, 

and British made it very hard to understand him. 

 We were trying to decide if he was mentally challenged or just wasted. 

Anyways, after a bit, he started stumbling away and then collapsed to his knees, 

then to all fours, then just rolled over on the ground! 

We were like "What do we do??" 

We thought, for a minute there, we were witnessing this man

 move on to the spirit world! We called 999 

("Quick! What's the number for 911?") 

Luckily, a British Red Cross lady happened to be driving past 

and stopped and took care of him while we called the ambulance! 

We hope he was alright! 

We found out the next morning that he was probably just wasted. 

We walked past where it happened and there was a blanket 

and an empty bottle of Scotch. 

We went to Wayne Manor on PDay this week.

For those of you who aren't Batman fans, 

this is where the Batman movies were filmed.

We discovered a good chocolate bar! So, it's Oreo filling and 

cookie crumbles wrapped in Cadbury milk chocolate. 

YES! Soooo good. 

One night, we were walking 

home all wet and cold and saw a cornershop. 

We just looked at each other and we were like, 

"Ahhhhh yeah! Cadbury here we come!" Hahaha 

There's a cool family in the ward. The Beveridges. :) 

They're way cool! Anna is from Venezuela.

 Mike is from Dalkeith, Scotland. I know you're not supposed to pick 

favourites....but they're pretty up there. 

There's also a member named Oz. He's been a convert for about 7 years. 

Old guy. Way cool!

 He helps the missionaries out a ton. Turns out he used to be a con man 

in a major gang in Nottingham called the Gunnies. Hahaha 

He's got quite the past! He's also has some funny stories, man:) 

Things here are going alright! Were managing to stay kind of afloat. 

 It's been an experience that's for sure! I wouldn't change it for the world:) 

I love the mission! Anyways, hope all is well and dry in da States! 

God bless 'Merica. God save the queen.

 Cheers mates! 

Elder Wright

Life Across The Pond Is Full Of Adventures!!

Hey hey! 

So wow!! 

There have been some switch ups in the past week! 

It all started on Monday night as we were GQing in city centre. 

We were wandering around, talking to people. Then we got the phone call. 

*Ring, ring* It's the APs. 

They were announcing an Emergency Transfer happening. 

So, I am no longer in Peterborough!! 

I was told that night to pack up my things because 

the next day I was leaving to Nottingham!! 

Crazy beans!! 

 I have been in Nottingham since Tuesday. 

And, the even crazier thing is I'm white washing the

 area with a missionary from the same group as me!! 

Elder J. Porter Smith. So yeah! This is an adventure. 

Hahaha! Two "just barely greenies" white washing in Nottingham. Man.....

The kind of stinky thing too was I had to leave so fast, 

I didn't really get to say goodbye to any of the members! :/ 

Bummer. 

Elder Smith is way cool! We get along really well! 

It's funny because we slept on the same bunk bed in the MTC. 

Haha! His first area was Kidderminster. 

Little did we know in just 3 months we'd be thrown into the deep end together. 

Haha! But it has been great so far! 

We're always thinking of how it's gonna be awesome in 

some future day to look back on this and say, 

"Remember when we white washed Nottingham together as greenies?!" Haha!

Holy cow. Hills! Hills everywhere! 

I didn't quite realize how FLAT Peterborough was until I left it and came here! 

This is a little river in Nottingham.

Nottingham areas are split into four and we cover the north of Nottingham. 

Our main town is Bulwell. The flat is alright! It's a bit bigger than my last one.

 We've been walking everywhere because some missionaries accidentally 

broke my bike in the transfer process. :/ 

So, I'm gonna have to buy a bike! 

Luckily I didn't really lose anything with it because it was free. But yeah!

This week has been very interesting! 

The area book is one of the most important tools when white washing an area, 

so if it's not really up to date, then the next missionaries are screwed. 

And guess what!....the past missionaries weren't super great 

at keeping the area book up to date. Haha! It has been interesting! 

We've seen some of the old investigators and some 

less-actives that they were working with. 

Cool story! 

One of the first days, we stopped by a less-active by the name of Andrew. 

We showed him the Because He Lives video and talked about it with him. 

We saw him in town a couple of days after that and he was like,

 "After you guys left the other night, before I was about to go to sleep, 

I started to read my scriptures again!" 

It felt good to see that we were making a difference in his life! 

The work here in Nottingham is alright. 

We found several potentials, so hopefully we can go somewhere with them! 

This is a huge learning experience being put with Elder Smith since we're both new.

 I feel like we're learning more, faster. It's good:) Way exciting! 

 Of course there's always disappointment.

(especially when you have like 4 lessons planned 

in a day and NONE of them turn out!) 

Sadness 101....... 

But it's alright. :) We have some good times, some good laughs:) 

We were walking to a lesson the other day and 

Elder Smith and I just quoted remember the Titans a bunch. 

It was great!! Haha Good times:)

The ward is pretty cool! Our ward mission leader is FREAKING GREAT! 

He got back from his mission to Brazil about 3 months ago, 

so he's still got that mission fire attitude going on. It's way exciting! :) 

He was totally laughing that first coordination meeting. 

He was like, "How long have you two been out??" 

 "Oh about 3 months for both of us!" He just started cracking up!! 

Apparently, the ward has a big influence of Portuguese and Spanish people. 

It's pretty cool! The ward has been very good at welcoming us. 

At church, we'd shake everyone's hands and they'd just be like,

 "Four new missionaries?? Wow!" 

Haha! Yup....we're thinking the same thing. 

May God be with us. 

 Before I left Peterborough, we were talking about this whole 

transfer thing and how I'd be white washing with someone in my MTC group. 

These were the wise words of my zone leaders. 

"Rely HEAVILY on the Atonement." Hahaha! It was hilarious. 

It has been a very long week, but pretty decent for the most part. :) 

 Many memories! Many laughs. It's good:) 

More excited than nervous now which is good:)  

We had some freaking good fish and chips for lunch today. Mmmm. 

But, I had to get medium cod because they were out of large cod! 

What the heck! That's like Arby's being out of roast beef!! ;D haha!

 Cadbury is beloved. Mmm. On a cold day this week, 

we stopped into a cornershop for some warmth and bought some Cadbury. 

Soooo delicious:D So milky. So milky. 

Anyways, quite a big week this week! Hope you enjoyed the news feed. 

 Hope everything is well back home! 

Have a happy Thanksgiving! Eat a ton of food for me. 

Cheesy rolls. (A tear just came from my eyeball).

Cheers! :)

Elder Wright