My companion is Wolverine!

What's up everyone! Another week gone....what the heck. Time flies too quickly sometimes!:/ But anyways, I am here in my greenie area and man it's weird! Haha I get occasional flashbacks in the randomest of places! It's crazy to see the changes and everything as well. That was like 20 months ago:o Some of the youth I remember got all growed up. Haha It's weird! But yeah, it's good to be back:)

Oh! And definitely some good news....so Denver, our recent convert from Nottingham, is from Peterborough. He finishes exams in June so he will be coming back to Peterborough and will be in our ward!!:D I'm super stoked about that!! It'll be good to catch up with him and see how he's doin:)

My new companion is Elder Ofasi, from London. It's been a lot of fun to be serving with him! So I was in his first district when he was a greenie way back when. And then we also served together in the same zone when I was in Cheltenham. So we've seen each other quite a bit, and it's been a lot of fun:) We have a very multi-cultured district here in Peterborough. We got me (...US), Ofasi (UK), Hakanpää (Finland), Celestini (Italy), Tartaglia (Italy), Tarapi (Philippines), Thornton (Australia), and Nkomo (South Africa). So yeah! It's a lot of fun:) haha 

So this week wasn't too too interesting to be honest. One of the guys that we used to teach here, Decio, is still "investigating" the church. And by "investigating", I mean he shows up to sports night on a Friday and that's it. Haha:P As far as the work goes here, it's going alright. There was just a Portuguese family that was baptized not too long ago, which are awesome!:) Other than that, there isn't too much going on in the work. That's the struggle after someone gets baptised.....you then have to continue finding new peeps. Haha So our teaching pool is pretty barren, but hey! 

Ofasi and I had some good times one day...haha So, to start off, we both love music. And we're both semi-musically inclined. I was just thumbing around on the guitar one night and discovered some nice chords. So we threw something together and started writing a song. Haha It's kinda bluesy/soulful, which is perfect because Ofasi has a good voice for soul (let's just say he's less white than most people). Man, we had some good times jamming out. Hopefully we don't disturb the neighbours too much. Haha:) 

Speaking of disturbing neighbours, there's this guy that lives below us. Man, he's been complaining since I was there, and who knows how long before that! He's gets mad at us for walking:P And this one time, we were cleaning our flat, so we vacuumed the floors, cleaned the showers, did the dishes, etc. Ya know, the usual cleaning methods. And he comes banging on our door and swearing at us for being so loud. He told us he hopes we get cancer and die. Hahaha What the fetch! So yeah, we've got some interesting neighbours. But the guy that always used to scream in the middle of the night no longer lives there so.....blessings!;D haha 

Other than that, I'm looking forward to the coming week! Hopefully we can get something rolling on:) But yeah, that's about it really. Hope all is well with you all! Happy early Mothers Day to ya!!:) Love you guys, cheers. 

May 1, 2017

Wazz up everyone! Hope life is great for y'all. Life over here is pretty good at the moment. The week was pretty average to be honest:) We also got the news for the transfers. You guys won't believe it!! But hey, I'll stall a little bit just to build up the suspense;) haha 

So amazingly, Elder Bosco is healing up real quick! His giant pepperoni sized scab in his face is completely gone! Everyone in the ward was just completely amazed by it! (And me too....my companion is Wolverine) Haha We had a dinner with the Bishop earlier this week and they were just like "What the heck!! It's gone!" Haha So yeah! Oh, and sad story, after the dinner with the bishop, we got to our bikes and my back tire was completely flat. :P Had a giant thorn stuck in the tire/tube. So we ended up walking our bikes back to our flat, which was like 3 miles. But! On the way, we found this cool Hungarian kid that's like 20 that we're going to start teaching!:)

We also had exchanges this week, so I went to Warwick with Elder Toshimitsu (Japan) and Elder Bosco stayed here with Elder Radudon (Thailand). It was a pretty good exchange! :) Elder Bosco said that him and Radudon were Street contacting. Radudon went up to this guy and was like "Hello there! What makes you happy!" The guy was like "If I won the lottery" and then walked off. Haha When I heard it, I was cracking up cause stuff like that always happens. But then he said that Radudon was just like "Man, people in my country have nothing. And they're happy!" It's so true! People in the world just really lose sight of what should be desired and what's important. 

That's one thing that has totally opened my eyes in the mission is prideful people and humble people. You hear about missionaries that go to missions in South America or the Philippines where it's really humbling because the people have nothing. They people live in shacks and have no money. Well, in my mission, it's the complete opposite!! The amount of pride we confront on a daily basis is astounding:P Later in the week, we cycled out to this village (Newton) to do some tracting. We talked to this one guy that just basically talked about himself the whole time. He bragged about how he drives fast cars, travels around the world, has made a successful business, etc. His wording was he "made it", as though he had finished the fight. We tried sharing with him the Book of Mormon saying that it talks about how we can gain that lasting peace in this life and help us prepare for the next. He said he lives in the now and doesn't care about the future. He just wasn't havin anything! It's no wonder the Book of Mormon talks so much about Pride vs. Humility. Just take a look at the reaction of the Jews when Christ came vs. the reaction of the Nephites when Christ came to them. Big ol difference there! But anyways, sorry for ranting on about today's society. Haha I'll stop;)

So, I guess we better get to the transfer business!:o I'm not going to drag on or anything, I'll just say it......I'm finishing my mission where it started!! Yup, that's right. Peterborough!! Hahaha What the heck are the odds?? And it's the same flat again as well! This is going to be really strange! That area was my first experience to full time missionary work and it'll also be my last. I feel like it's going to be so strange going back there! I'm serving with Elder Ofasi, from London:) I'm excited about that as well, we've served around each other quite a bit so we already know each other pretty well. But yeah! That's my news. I am bumming to leave Elder Bosco! He's awesome. You really do come to know and love the people you serve with. It's been a great experience with him:) Sad to leave him. But hey, that's the mission for ya! But yeah, that's about all I have. Love you guys loads! Hope all is well and we shall speak to ya next week! Cheers!

April 24, 2017

Hello all! Sooo...this has been quite the week. Haha Where to start?? Well I suppose we will start from the beginning. 

The start of the week was ok! We had a lesson with Janis. Janis is the Latvian guy I talked about last week. So it's kinda bummer news with him. It was way promising for him...he was wanting to change, he did feel that strong change of heart and everything but the withdrawals were just too bad for him. We saw him on the Tuesday and he was in bad shape. He didn't ever give in and start smoking pot or doing drugs or anything, which is good news. But he's having some effects in the mind having gone cold turkey off it all. He was heavily into drugs since his mid teens and just stopped a little over a month ago (he's about 30 years old). Well after doing all we could to help build his faith in Christ, he just wasn't taking anything. He had a visit from his doctor on the Friday and said he's delusional..:/ So yeah....that kinda sucked but hey ho. Life moves on I suppose! 

The week went on as usual. Came to Thursday in the which we had zone meeting! Elder Bosco and I were invited to give a training in zone meeting which ended up to be really fun:) We related the BLT sandwich to some PMG stuff. Don't ask how it was done....but it worked out:D haha It was all fun and games until the Thursday afternoon after zone meeting.. As we were biking to the bus station to go to Daventry, Elder Bosco decided to cut through some traffic and ended up getting smashed by a car going 30!! Absolutely got smashed...the bike exploded, the helmet he was wearing exploded, the car got smashed up. The miracle is he is still alive!....and the even greater miracle is there were no broken bones or anything! Just a couple of cuts here and there. Like, it's crazy! I saw his body get smashed and go flying through the air but he just got up from it. The first thing he said after getting hit was "Whoa.....I felt that one." Hahaha 

So that put a damper on a lot of things really. (Obviously.....the kid just got hit by a car. Haha) He's got a sore knee and sore shoulder so we haven't been doing any crazy crap lately. He's healing well now so that's super good! Man....I still can't believe it. Haha Because it ended up alright all things considered, we look back on it and laugh. If it was any other outcome, That'd would've sucked! But we're just grateful he's alive and well!! He now has learned that before crossing the road, LOOK BOTH WAYS. 

We were able to convince one of the families that we ate dinner with that we had gotten mugged (because he's got cuts on his face and arms). We built up the story all nicely and they all totally believed it! They're the kind of family that you can just banter with and have a good laugh. So that was nice:) 

We had a stake conference this weekend with a member of the Seventy from Norway. Elder Henland. He's a pretty cool guy!:) He kinda based his ideas around how as humans and members of the church, we all have something wrong with us. Haha He's a funny guy! His sense of humour was hilarious! But anyways, that was an awesome experience:) I was able to reunite with some of the peeps from Chelmsley Wood Ward. Man, Bishop Charmbury....I forgot how much of a legend that guy is! It's always cool meeting up with friends you haven't seen in a while. It's been like 9 months since I left Chelmsley Wood. Man, time flies. Haha 

I'm officially in the double digits of days left on the mission, which is crazy! Can't believe it! This next Sunday we get the "Dodge Calls" telling us if we're leaving the area or not. Guess we shall find out what happens!:) Well, this concludes this session of the life of me. Love you all and hope all is well:) Cheers mates!

April 17, 2017

Hey all!! Sorry I don't have a ton of time today to write, as we've been hanging with the district today doing some stuff:D It's been a pretty good week though. We had a HUGE miracle at the start of this week. I think for the sake of time and space in the email, I'll just tell ya about that. Just know the rest of the week was good too:)

So, it all starts a couple weeks ago when we read a scripture about missionaries in the Book of Mormon and how hey did "fast and pray oft". So we decided to fast a ton! We fasted 3 weeks ago, had some cool miracles from that. Nothin too too major. The second fast was alright....well actually not really. Haha We had a lot of crap happen after the second fast. So the third weekend, we fasted again, this time for the purpose of finding someone that will be willing to be baptised. That's a good thing to fast for huh! Well, it all starts Monday afternoon/evening. 

As we were emailing in the chapel, Elder Bosco went to use the toilet. After he was gone a while, I was thinking to myself "Man, what did we eat?" Haha So I go to see what's in and lo and behold, Elder Bosco is talking to this guy on the chapel down the hall. Turns out he just walked in and was checking stuff out. After speaking to him for a bit, he had tears in his eyes and said he wants to change his life. He said he's done some really bad things in his life and he wants to forget about it all and change. About a month ago, he "woke up". He stopped all the drugs, stopped the alcohol, stopped the Chastity issues. Just everything. It also turns out that he was going to come to church the day before as well, but he showed up in the evening and obviously our church doesn't really have meetings in the evening. 

Well, we showed him a painting of Christ in the chapel, testified of the Saviour. Took him into the chapel. I felt prompted to give him a blessing, so we did! He kept expressing a desire to change his life and we felt prompted to invite him to be baptised, so we did! And he accepted! So he's set to be baptised in the end of May!:D If that's not a miracle and answer to a fast and prayer, I don't know what is. After he left the building, we just fell on our knees and thanked God! Haha It was crazy. HUGE miracle. 

Oh, his name is Janis (Yanis) and he's from Latvia. We've seen him a couple more times since then. He does have some issues because of him going cold turkey off all the drugs and stuff but whenever we teach him, he just seems happier and at peace. He came to church as well so it's super awesome!! :) But yeah, because of that we've had a pretty good week. Anyways, running out of time. Hope all is well! Love you all! Take care!:)

April 10, 2017

Wazzz up everyone! It's Elder Wright. And we welcome you out to the account of my life here in Rugby, Warwickshire, England:) This week has been very interesting! Haha Got some very weird stuff that happened. But first off, there were a solid like 2-3 days straight of just blue skies and sun! It was sooo nice:) (Good weather is actually kinda trunky to be honest) Let us go into this bad boy..

So Tuesday and Wednesday were very interesting. It just seemed like everyone was out to get us!! So many jerks. Haha For instance, as we were talking to this lady on the door step, there was this construction guy working on the house next to us, and of course, a lot of houses are very close together here in the UK. So he could hear what we were saying to this lady, and we could hear what he was saying about us. He was just cursing at us repetitively under his breath, which ya know, go for it. We don't mind. But the annoying part was after we concluded speaking with the lady! Of course, as we pass we say, "Morning, how are you guys?" And he just started cursing and telling us to F off. (Guy must be having a bad day. Haha) Well, Elder Bosco is writing something in his planner and the guy comes over to him with this cord in his hand and just whips it across Boscos hand. We were like "Dude, calm down!" His construction friend had to come and hold him back. So that was Tuesday morning...(great start to the week huh. Haha;)) And after that, just everyone was negative and yelling at us. Very interesting week!

There were some good things that happened though! Haha Some tender mercies from the Lord. Twice this week, we had to use the bus. When we got on the bus, both times, the guy couldn't work out the machine so we didn't have to pay!! (And one of the tickets was an astounding £15!....fist pump!) So that was nice. Had a couple of members have us for dinner and they were mighty fine meals! Elder Boscos first "Toad in a Hole". If you don't know what that is, look it up. So yeah, amidst the crapiness of it all, we had some nice things happen too:D

We had exchanges this week, in the which I spent some good time with Elder Turnbow:) Back to the good old days. We had some fun doing service for a lady in the ward...she asked us to dig up her back garden and level it all out. Then on the drive back to Rugby, there was a beautiful sunset and a Union Jack flowing in the wind. I got a pick of it for ya, don't worry;) I do love this country. It will forever have a place in my ol heart!

I think the highlight of the week was when a kinda less active man came to church with his two daughters. They want their youngest daughter baptised, so we go over every Friday and eat dinner with them and teach the daughter. And this was the first week they've actually come to church! It was awesome to see them there:) But yeah, that's about the extent of our week here in Ruggers. Hope all is well for ya guys:) Enjoy the life! Cheers. 

April 3, 2017

Waz up! How you all doin?? This was pretty dang good:) Had a lot of cool things happen for us. So last weekend we decided to fast for our area and man, fasting works! I always describe fasting as a prayer on steroids...cause it is! Tuesday we found loads of cool people that we can potentially start working with. 

So it's been pretty rare for Bosco and I to get into people's homes straightaway when tracting. But Tuesday, it happened a couple of times for us! The first dude was this really extremely happy old man from up north. He's like 85 and still really active:D haha So he was pretty cool. The second guy was kinda interesting! His name is Jason. He let us in for some hot chocolate (yes!) and a chat. He absolutely hates organised religion, which I do understand. He kept on talking about concerns that he has about religion, and everything he was bringing up, we were just like "Dude, this can help you man! We have answers that you're looking for!!" Finally, he agreed to read the Book of Mormon and the Restoration leaflet. I'm excited to follow up with him and see what he thought!:)

A few weeks back, we met this guy on the street named Stephen. He seemed pretty cool at the time, said he's going through some hard times. He gave us his phone number and told us to call him after 2 anyday. Well, for a while we weren't able to get in contact with him. Then, last Tuesday as we were going about our business, we called him and he said he could meet us that Friday! Yahoo!! We met him in a Costa and told him about faith in Christ. He expressed that he has many health issues and he's going through some family problems. We shared Alma 7 with him and testified of the Saviour and the Book of Mormon! We asked him at the end if he would be down to meet up with us again and he said he would! So he's been one of our more solid people that we've found here in Rugby. I'm pretty excited about that:D

So Conference was awesome!! Had some really good talks:) I always love Uchtdorfs talks. Also Eyrings talk from the Priesthood session was good. Man, I just love Conference! It's almost like Thanksgiving. Haha Spiritual thanksgiving twice a year!! On the Saturday morning session (which we watched at 5pm) we held it at the chapel. It was cool because it was just a small group of us watching it...we had Cristiana (recent convert) and Pat Neal, who's a member. And then lo and behold halfway through, our less active friend George showed up!! Yes!! So that was awesome:)

Overall, it was a good week:) I cannot believe how fast time is flying by! The weeks go by as fast as the days. That was my last General Conference in the UK!:o What the.... I was reading through my journal from my first area and boy...it seems like yesterday, kind of....but so much has happened in between! But anyways, that's about it from me! Hope all is well and dandy for ya guys:) Enjoy the week! Cheers. 

A compilation of the last few letters.

Hey all! 

This week, 'twas pretty straight forward! We enjoyed some dang good weather in the latter half of the week. It's chilly now, but there were some dang nice blue skies Saturday and Sunday. Oh how I love good weather. I love it. I love it, I love it, I love it. Haha;D Although at the end of it all, I will probably miss the damp overcast setting of England. There indeed, is a special place in the heart for this country! :)

We had our district meeting on Wednesday this week. It was a very interesting journey home, let us say. To get back to Rugby from Warwick requires two buses. One from Warwick to Leamington Spa, and then one from Leamington to Rugby. Well, we caught the first bus just in time to get us to Leamington to catch that bus on time. About 15 minutes into the ride, the bus broke down! Nooo! So when we got to Leamington, we had missed our bus to Rugby...we had to wait in Leamington for about 45 minutes for the next bus. We got on the Rugby bus eventually, and started on the way! We were sure we were on the right bus.... Well about 45 minutes into the ride, were just like "Hmmm....something doesn't seem right." And lo and behold, we show up on the outskirts of Leamington again!! We definitely got on the right bus, but they must've changed the number of the bus while we were on it. Dang it. Haha So we then had to wait 20 more minutes for the next Rugby bus. And we made SURE with the bus driver that this one was going to Rugby. So that was an ordeal! But hey, everything happens for a reason I suppose! Who knows. :)

Friday was a SUPER quick day! It was actually really awesome. It was a day full of teaching! We taught a couple of the recent converts in the morning, then we taught a lovely old lady named Stella at a Church of England church. Taught a couple less actives and then had a DA with a way cool fam.:) Time surely flies when you're having fun!

Saturday was a cool day as well! :) It was good weather as well, so we took a train to Long Buckby, a village at the edge of our area. Then we biked a good six-ish miles through the English countryside to a town called Daventry to do some work!:) People are so cheerful when the weather is nice. :D It really does make a huge difference on the people's attitudes (mine including). We had a dinner appointment out there in the evening, which was mighty fine. Had some nice Indian cuisine. Then the dad said he would show us the back route back to Long Buckby on the bikes. He geared up with us and we took the journey! It was a beautiful trail! We biked along this canal at night. That was one of those mission moments where I just thought "Where the heck am I?? What am I doing?? 

This is so cool!" Haha:)

I am so excited for GENERAL CONFERENCE!! Yahoo!! I love conference...it's become one of my favourite times of year:) Our Prophet and Apostles right now are so cool. I cannot wait! Training Elder Bosco is going good! He's a great kid:) Can't believe how fast the weeks are going!

One last thought.

 I just think it's crazy to think that the very God of this world, the Creator of all things, was confronted by a mob of men holding pitch forks and torches. For flipping 30 pieces of silver, they brought him to be crucified. Through the whole of it, He could've just ended it all at anytime. Through all the abuse and low times, He could've called upon the wonders of heaven and ended it at any time... But He didn't! He held out..and because of that, we've got the chance to be able to return into His presence, with tears, and thank Him for what He did. It's crazy man! :/ I can scarcely comprehend it sometimes.  Anyways, hope all is well guys! 

Talk to ya laters!

Elder Wright

3/20/17

Hey hey!

This week was pretty dang good!:) Had some really good stuff happening this week. Man, the weather was so dandy on one of the days. We literally were cruising around in just our white shirts. Sunny and warm.....MMMMM:) Haha But it's back to normal now.. 

Like I said we had some cool stuff happen this week! On Tuesday, we were biking around stopping by people and we see in the distance at this park a group of our aged kids playing some basketball! About 15 min later Bosco was like "Would it be a good finding activity to go play basketball with those lads??" So we decided, eh why not! Haha Crazy enough, we get talking to them and they're like "Oh man, they're doing what Sam Miller is doing!" Sam Miller is one of the missionaries serving from this ward. We were like "How do you know him??" Turns out one of them is the cousin of Sams girlfriend. Small world! Well, after playing some good ol basketball with them, we said, "Alright...no BS. Who wants to hear a message about Jesus?" They were like "Yeh alright go ahead!" So we taught them about the Restoration then and there! It was funny because we had a ton of leaflets/BoMs and we were fanning them out of our hands, "Alright take your pick!" Haha So when we were getting ready to leave, a few of them were sitting there smoking weed while reading the Book of Mormon!! Haha! Hey, at least they're reading it, right? That was a fun experience:)

Ah man, we had another funny experience as well. You gotta love the people you meet on a mission! On Saturday morning this guy (Adrian) came up to us (Sometimes you got to be wary of people that come up to you to speak. The first question you should be thinking is "Are they accountable?" Haha) Anyways, we got talking to him. He's a bit odd but hey, we're all odd in some way. We invited him to come to the chapel for a baptism later that day. And sure enough, guess who shows up at the baptism! Adrian. He started telling us at the baptism that he is Elvis Presley reincarnated.....yes, you read that right.  He wanted to sing for us during the service and we're just like, "Alright you can show us outside!" So he sang for us outside of the church! We did take a video so hopefully it can send to ya guys and you can see what he's like. ;D 

Like I said, there was the baptism of Carola this weekend!! Man, she is such a legend:) She was on a baptismal date for a bit before we got here. But man, it's been cool to work with her for the past few weeks! Elder Bosco gave her the strong commitment to read the Book of Mormon for an hour every day before her baptism and she did it!! :D She would get up at like 5:30 every morning and read the Book of Mormon for an hour. We taught her about fasting as well, and she says "Ok I'm going to fast tomorrow!" Man, she's so cool. The service was really special and the confirmation as well!....Spirit was definitely there in abundance. :)

The work is picking up bit by bit which is nice. Starting to find some promising souls!! We shall see what happens there. Time is sure flying by! Can't believe that this transfer is comin to an end soon. That concludes this session of the account of my life. :)  

Hope all is well in Zion and talk to ya laters! Cheers!

Elder Wright

3/13/17

What's up everyone! 

 The first two weeks of a new transfer (either new comp, new area, or both) are always kinda slow. But we've gone past that now and gone into a good routine. :) It came to Friday and Bosco was like "Man, it seems like it was just Friday last week and it's Friday again!" Days feel like weeks, weeks feel like days. 

Speaking of Friday, Friday was a day dedicated for spring cleaning! President and Sister Leppard dedicated a day in this week for us to completely clean our flats. Like scrub the floors, clean the walls, EVERYTHING. So Friday was our day to do that and man, it's like a new flat now! Haha It's so nice to just know that it's clean!:)

This week we went on exchange with the Stratford Elders. I went over to Stratford with Elder Hodge. Stratford is pretty cool! It's touristy for obvious reasons....Shakespeare town. :) You meet people from all over the world!....only problem is they don't live in the area, so even if they wanted to be taught, they live halfway across the world. But it was good stuff! We had kind of a funny experience on exchange.. Elder Hodge and I were tracting. We got to this guy, the door opens and just a huge whiff of pizza comes flowin out. :D After talking to him for a bit, he said he wasn't interested. So we were like "Man, that's a great smell, what is it??" ;) He says"Pizza! You want some?" We looked at each other and then said "Yeah sure!" So while walking away from the house with pizza triumphantly in hand, Elder Hodge says "Who needs dinner appointments!" Haha It was a good laugh. 

A while back we tracted into this nice Christian family...a mom and a couple of sons. They invited us over for dinner for Thursday night this week and it was awesome! They're a way funny family! He was that kid I was telling you about that was talking about the funny things the Brits do. :) We had a lovely meal with them and were able to teach them about the Book of Mormon! She's a born again Christian so I figured I'd give her Alma 36 to read. It's the account of Alma's conversion and it's very born again-like. :)  We hope to be able to share more with them in the future here. 

We got invited over to do service with a member on Saturday morning. They live between Daventry and Long Buckby. (Beautiful Hills over there) We got there not really knowing what we were going to be doing for the service. They live on a cool little farm so we were checking out their pigs and chickens and stuff. Then he told us we were going to be building a fence for the animals. He had us smacking this giant post into the ground....man I haven't don't anything too physically demanding in a very long time! I am so sore right now!!  It felt really good though to do some manual labour!:) Elder Bosco was right at home as well...he grew up on a farm so he's been used to doing that kind of stuff since he was a kid. 

It's a beautiful day today! Blue skies are shining and the Brits are smiling. :) But we're heading over to Warwick castle for Pday with the district! Should be way fun to get out and do something fun. I've been so used to having missionaries in the same area as me for the past months. It's so weird to just be secluded out yonder. But it'll be fun to have a nice day. Well hey, I hope everything is fine over there on that side of the world! Hope you have a most fantastic week. 

Cheers mates!

Elder Wright

3/6/17

Hey hey! 

It's been a pretty good week! Bosco and I are getting used to the area and the routine of things so it's been good!:) Weather has been on and off again....so bipolar. Haha You get a couple of horribly wet days then a decently sunny day, then more rainy days. To be fair, it's been a pretty good winter so far so can't complain. :)

Let's see....what happened this week. We spent quite a bit of time stopping by people that we had on the map. We were able to weed through those people that weren't too interested so now we can focus our time in other places! :) We were able to find a couple new people to work with this week! Karean and his mom Louise....we tracted into them and spoke for a while last week. Well we popped around again on Saturday and spoke more with them! She's a born again Christian I believe and very devoted to it. She's a really nice lady and the kid is way cool! :) They invited us over to have dinner with them this Thursday so I'm pretty excited for that.

Another guy was named Philip. He's a Jamaican guy that's lived here for a while. He had been taught previously a bit by missionaries but hasn't been able to meet for a while. Well we popped around his and were able to teach him! It was probably the proper first sit down lesson in someone's home that Bosco has experienced so it was way good for him. It was funny because Philip kinda started out like "Oh who do you guys think God is?....Is God more important than Jesus?" Etc, etc. Well we just turned it around on him and just testified of Jesus Christ! I think that calmed him down a bit and then we were able to teach him about the Book of Mormon. He said he had one from previous missionaries so we taught about it, showed him a Mormon Message, testified, and then invited him to read it for himself! The Spirit was really strong there and he committed to read the Book and pray. He invited us to dinner on Wednesday as well! (Man, were almost getting more dinner appointments from investigators than we are members. Haha:P ) So were really stoked about that!

We had a pretty funny experience. One of the days it was really, really windy. Like, really windy! (A lady in Birmingham got killed by a piece of roof that flew off and smacked her...that's how windy it was) Anyways, they cancelled all the trains so we had to take a bus from Coventry to Rugby. On the bus, we got talking to this guy from Bolivia! (I successfully used my basic knowledge of high school Spanish to strike up an alright conversation with him) So that was pretty cool. Well anyways, we're taking this bus down these back country roads....green hills on either side, sheep, cows, the typical beautiful English scenery. Well, partway through the bus ride, the bus stopped and the driver opens his little door thing, looks back at all of us and is like "Does anyone know the way??" Hahaha I was thinking "Ah man, you know you're in trouble when not even the bus driver knows the way"! Luckily, we had an old lady on board that must've been riding this bus route since the early 20th century. She saved the day and we successfully arrived back in Rugby just in time for a lovely dinner appointment:) haha

One of the things Bosco has said he's learning the most is how to deal with rejection and actually turn it around. For instance, there was this Russian guy out smoking a cig on his front yard. We were like, "Hey man, how's it goin! We're missionaries for our church." He immediately was like "No boys, not interested." After talking for a while about life and whatnot, he started asking us about what we're doing, how the mission is, etc. By the end, he came up to us, asked our names, gave us a couple fist bumps and then went on. Afterwards Bosco was just like "Man, it's crazy how someone can go from 'No not interested' to then giving us fist bumps as we head off." My wee son is growing! :.) haha

Yup, it's been an alright week. We're finally back on the bikes as well so I'm excited about that. Wish us luck and I hope you have a most fantastic week! 

Cheers! :)

Elder Wright

2/27/17

Hey hey!! :) 

Wow, it's been a crazy week! Haha But overall pretty dang awesome. I have my son now!! His name is Elder Bosco and he's from Waddy, Kentucky:) And he is pumped about the work!! Haha He's probably the most enthusiastic greenie I've ever seen so that's pretty fun! But yeah, overall he's a good kid:) Twill be a fun time to serve together. 

They did the meeting where you receive the greenies a bit different this time! It was kinda fun, so first you all meet together and have some opening remarks and then pray over the lunch. You then go into lunch (and remember no one knows who's training who) and kinda mingle while eating lunch. Elder Bosco and I just happened to sit next to each other and we were chattin pretty much the whole time so that was cool!:) Anyways, you then go into the meeting and find out who is training who. It was way cool:) 

I think he's adjusting well to the whole mission thing. He's picking up things extremely fast....he's just gotta learn some patience now. Haha The mission isn't exactly sunshine and rainbows. (in fact, here its mostly clouds and rainbows;) haha) So over the week we had quite a few appointments fall through and people not be so interested so that kinda was a bummer for him. He kept asking "What's the longest period of time where you haven't had a full on sit down lesson with someone?" Haha I was like "Well son, here in this mission you gotta get used to teaching on doorsteps and in the streets. The British aren't usually too trusting with strangers and it is very rare for someone to let you into their home straightaway on the first visit!" 

Bosco had kind of a fun first experience...one day we were walking and this guy started talking to us. He said "Now I believe Joseph Smith saw an angel Moroni.." We were thinking "Yes! Yes!" And then he said "But I believe it was the fallen angel Moroni." Then we were thinking "No! No!" Haha Well after sharing a Book of Mormon with him, this random lady interrupted our conversation and told this man "Read the words of Christ." And again, we were thinking "Yes! Yes! Amen!" And then she said "Not the Book of Mormon!!" And we of course were like "NO! NO!" Haha But yeah, that was kind of a funny experience:)

After the whole week kinda being full of uninterested people, Saturday came around! In the morning, we went up to an area to stop by some peeps. As usual, they weren't in so we decided to knock on some doors right there by the people:) Lo and behold, we talked to this teenager for a while on the doorstep. His name is Kearan and man, he was flipping HILARIOUS!:D So the conversation we had was about doing missionary work in Britain. He was asking us what it's like to just knock on doors and talk to people in the streets. And it was funny because he was on the point of view of the British. Man, he was talking about how the Brits are kind of stand off ish but also very nosey at the same time. Just the things he was saying, I've TOTALLY seen it in the time that I've been here. It's hard to describe over email so if you or I ever meet in person, I'll describe it more to ya;) haha But anyways, halfway through talking with him, his mother roles up and immediately starts talking to us about America. (they LOVE America.....I mean, who doesn't?;) ) She's a Christian as well so she was super bubbly and happy to see us. They needed stuff done in their front garden so we offered to help and they were like "Yeah! Come around another time!" We were like "YES!!" A family that will hopefully go somewhere:D Ya never know what could lead to what. 

On Saturday as well, of course, was the baptism of Cristiana! And man, it was great!:) Good turnout, everything turned out all right, water wasn't too hot or too cold;) It was nice. Loads of missionaries came to it as well. I have a pic of all of us together after the baptism:) But yeah! ''Twas a way cool experience, especially for Bosco! Lucky dog, have a baptism your first weekend in the mission. Hahaha But yeah, we hope things will adjust nicely in the coming week! Ups and downs but overall good adventures:) Well hey, we shall talk to ya peeps next week! 

Cheers mates!

Elder Wright

2/20/17

Hey hey everyone! :)

We went with the Gloucester teams and Forest of Dean to the Forest just kinda exploring a bit. Went to Puzzlewood, which apparently they shot some scenes in the newer Star Wars movies which was cool!:D But yeah! It was way fun! It was the last Pday for the sisters in our MTC group which is super crazy! They are home now. Kinda blows my mind! It was kinda sucky saying goodbye to them to be honest! They feel like your actual sisters! They're on the plane with ya to the UK, of course the whole MTC experience, you see them occasionally throughout the course of mission conferences and stuff, and then after a year and a half they take off back to the great land of America! So now I'm starting to feel really old in the mission:) It's crazy!!

Whitewashing into Rugby is way cool!! I love it here so far! They stuck me with Elder Miner for the week, who is also going to be training. We don't have our greenies yet unfortunately. They'll be coming in the mail tomorrow:) Oh yeah, so I've been getting used to the life without the car! Ya don't know what you got til it's gone!! The district is pretty sweet! Then we got teams of sisters in Warwick (pronounced Warrick.....w is silent for some reason) and in Banbury. We got legends in the zone as well! Our zone leaders are Elder Turnbow (whom I served with. Way cool!) and Elder Langy from Tonga. One of the other DLs is Elder Mordue as well, so I'm way excited!:) 

There was some GREAT work going on here when I got here. Recently, in January this guy named Tom Manning got baptised, and he's like a totally normal person! Haha Also we have a baptism coming up THIS WEEKEND!! Haha Crazy huh? Her name is Cristiana. She is normal as well! Haha :) But yeah, its way exciting! My greenie is going to be spoiled...first week and he's got a baptism. Haha I thought about joking around with him and being like "Hey man, if you don't baptise like every weekend in this mission, you're doing something wrong!" ;D There's also another family that is set up to be baptised in March!! They were rockin it!:) 

I'm excited for the coming times!:) It'll be way fun! It's been nice whitewashing into the area with another "seasoned" missionary for a week! He's in the group ahead of me so he goes home in 4ish months. But yeah, we've just been talking about mission stories, talking about how we hope our boys are cool, etc. Haha:D It's been fun to be with Miner for a week! Even in a week, he's taught me loads! But yeah, we shall see where the wind takes these next couple transfers! Wish me luck, and we shall speak to ya in a weeks time! 

Ta! 

Elder Wright

After church they did a giant hog roast. Man, it was proper stuff.

Hey there!! Waz up everyone! :) 

So sorry, I don't have a lot of time to

write today! I will just go through the basics of the week. This week

was chuck FULL of meetings. I didn't receive my greenie yet as they

arrive in a week. And, my area that I will be training in

is..............Rugby! It's near Coventry. :) I'm pretty excited! I've

heard great things about the area and there are some legends in the

zone so it should be pretty cool:) I will stay in Rugby for a week

with another missionary until our children arrive in a week:) I'm excited to

train again! New adventures ahead. :)

We had a cool ward party after church yesterday with a Tongan

guy named Sione. He plays rugby for Tonga as well as Gloucester.

Anyways, he had a baby blessing this Sunday. After church they did a

giant hog roast. Man, it was proper stuff. Haha Anyways, that's about

all I can say for this week! 

Hope you have a great week. 

Cheers!

Elder Wright

"It's not how many pieces of fruit you pick, it's how many seeds you plant."

Waz up!! ''Twas a pretty good week this last week! 

We started implementing the new missionary schedule and key indicators. It's quite nice to be honest!:) The change has been nice for sure! Weather has been on and off lately. Haha Who knew! We went to the top of the Malvern Hills today and there was a COLD breeze up there! But, it was absolutely beautiful:D Supposedly it is where Wilford Woodruff dedicated the area of the mission back in the day! 

We found a really cool little family that were starting to teach! We tracted into the mother a few weeks back. They have a 12 week old baby, and the father is from Romania. (She's English) They're way cool!:) We implemented this thing called The Holy Ghost Principle, which basically just uses "How To Begin Teaching" in PMG and focuses it on a Spirit centred first lesson. They understood everything we were talking about and were way excited to learn more! And, just an added bonus, the father just happens to be the head chef of one of our favourite burrito shacks in town!! Yes!!! Hahaha;D 

One day, we got an invite from the Elders to play football at the local University with one of their investigators! It was way fun!! We played in a cage with a bunch of Uni students and check this out, you remember when I mentioned Jun last week, the guy who came to church. Well he just happens to be here playing football with these guys!! Haha It was great:) Sometimes in the mission, you get those occasional moments where you realize what you're doing and how epic it is. This day was one of them. When I was playing, I thought to myself  "I'm here in England playing football with a group of lads from all over the world. Ya got kids from England, Pakistan, Norway, Australia, Korea, China, Japan, and Canada. This is so cool!!" Haha I absolutely love it. That's one of my favourite things about England. It's just a cultural melting pot:)

Speaking of Jun, we have some sad news. He was a complete legend! He was learning and loving it and then he called us up one day saying he was leaving back to Korea. :/ We had one last meeting with him. We met him in the KFC. Taught him loads about the BoM, even gave him a Korean BoM. But, turns out the Korean was old Korean so he couldn't really read it that well. But, we showed him where the church in Korea is so hopefully when he goes back, maybe he will get in contact with missionaries over there. Who knows! But yeah, he told us that it was really important for him to meet with us before he left. We were the only Christian friends he knew in the UK!:o He gave us some Korean spice sauce as a departing gift;D haha Planting seeds baby. "It's not how many pieces of fruit you pick, it's how many seeds you plant."

I've got some big news for ya!! On Sunday as we were driving to a dinner appointment, the APs called me and told me I'm going to be a trainer again!:o That was a big surprise. 'Twas not expecting that really. So yeah! Kinda got mixed feelings about it but overall I suppose I'm pretty excited for it!:) It reminds me of my trainer when he trained me. He only had 3 transfers left when he started training me. (I have 4 left) I cannot believe I'm just about to the same point he was when he trained me. It's kinda blowing my mind!! 

So yeah, I'll have to be enjoying the last full week here in Cheltenham! Should be a good one for sure!:) Hope you all have a most fantastic week. 

Until next week! 

Cheers!

 Elder Wright

Waz up people!!:) How you livin??

Waz up people!!:) How you livin?? Things at the moment are pretty good! It was a pretty good week for the zone. Had zone meeting (loads of participation, it was fun!) this week! It was cool to see everyone together!:) But yeah, weather is getting a bit more British lately. Cold, damp, windy, all the above. Yahooo!!;D haha 

Yeah the week was pretty good. We're still trying to build something up over here! Slowly but surely.. Flippin Chris Amini, the eternal investigator, just isn't keeping commitments!:/ Even after a super spiritual lesson, he STILL isn't keeping commitments. So I think it's about time to slow things down with him and move on to others things for now. Hopefully somewhere down the line he will realise how awesome all this is!:) haha 

So amidst the finding of new investigators and whatnot, I'm going to tell ya about a guy named Michael. Haha So Michael we met in the street probs about a week ago. Nice guy! Graduated from Uni with a degree in physics. Went away from the faith through his time in uni, actually kind of attacking religion. Then eventually returned to his former Catholic faith. Kind of a cool story he had to be honest! But we met up in a coffee shop to teach him. Basically he was there trying to persuade us not to believe in the "Mormons".:P He started off "So you guys believe you can become God huh?" Straightaway Winterton and I looked at each other like "Fetch.....not one of these guys." Haha We talked to that man for two and half hours! I've never met anyone that was so PRO Catholicism. Haha But yeah, I feel we did a good job trying our best to teach by the Spirit and defending the faith! It's been a while since I've had that happen:) haha So that was interesting! New investigator and dropped and in the matter of 7 days!;P

Oh man....here's another kinda funny story. So we were in town speaking to people again (it's quite a common thing to do as a missionary;D haha) and we stopped this one guy named Chris. Oh boy... haha So to throw this out there now, to this day we don't know whether this guy is a member, ex communicated member, or nonmember:P Right, so I've had members take the mick outta me before pretending to be non members. They usually get quite the kick out of it! (Heck, I would as well if I were them!) But with this guy, it was like over the top. He knew EVERYTHING about the church. I mean everything....he even flipping know the family history of Lucy Mack Smith. Haha That's how much random stuff about Mormons he knew. The fact that he knew so much, we were like "This guy HAS to be a member!" But he continued and continued to deny it! And he was like subtly throwing anti at us, but at the same time he said he believes the Mormons to be the most correct religion, still not fully correct. He said he would never be baptised either. Like, it was so weird!! Haha And usually when members take the mick, they tell you at the end they were kidding and you have a good laugh.............but not this guy! No!....he just parted ways not saying anything. Afterwards we were just like "What just happened! We honestly thought about this for ages trying to call around and figure out if he was a member. I suppose we shall NEVER know...haha;) You had to be there to fully understand I guess..

So yeah! That's the end of this account:) Love ya guys loads! Hope all is well in Zion!:) Cheerio mates!!

Hey hey!! How's it going friends and family:) This week has been alright for the most part! I have my new comp, Elder Winterton, and it's going good so far! Been out for the same amount of time so that's always fun! So in the district, we now have me, Pedersen still, Elder Lo (from Canada, but originally Hong Kong), and Winterton from Utah. And then of course the sisters who haven't changed this time. It's a pretty fun district! The zone as well just got a lot of cool people into it!:D Last transfer everyone was quite shy, so it made it a bit awkward at things such as zone meeting, Christmas party, etc. But we have zone meeting later this week so that'll be nice to get to know them all.

One thing we've been trying to do now in the mornings is we wake up a little bit earlier and we head over to the Elders and pick them up to go play sports at the chapel:) It helps us wake up and stay awake nicely! Haha So that's something nice to look forward to in the morning:)

One of the goals that me and Winterton set for the coming weeks is that we need to find a certain amount of potentials before we go for lunch, creating I suppose a stronger drive to find more people! One morning we tried it out and I think the Lord was testing us! Haha We went to the centre of Cheltenham and began street contacting. We had a couple of pretty good conversations but no one was too interested in meeting up again. As time went by, we found the lone Chinese guy named Ting. Haha (All we set to find that morning was just two people. Keep that in mind!) But we still needed that last person. You start to get kinda achey from walking around, the stomach is growling. Long story short, after many hours of finding in town, we found the last guy! His name is Michael. He was brought up catholic. Studied physics in University. Said he lost his faith and actually started to kind of banter with the Christian Union at the Uni, using science and logic. Kind of a crazy story!:) haha After a while though, he felt a change and returned back to the faith. So we have set to see him this coming weekend which will be pretty cool:) It was just cool to be able to push and push and then finally receive what we were aiming for!

We also found a cool new guy from Bulgaria! His name is Shener, super nice Muslim guy:) Like honestly, Muslims can be some of the most generous and caring people I've ever met. Anyways, it took a while for us to finally be able to teach him. He works loads at this car wash place in town so he's almost never in. But after weeks and weeks, we FINALLY caught him at a good time!:D He let us into his home and we were able to get to know him more. Shared a brief message about the Restoration as well so it was awesome! :) We are going to see him tomorrow again. We are slowly slowly building up our teaching pool. Blessings from the heavens!:) haha 

Overall it was a pretty good week:) I'm looking forward to the new transfer and new year! Can't believe how fast time is going. It's blowing my mind. I was thinking about it, I now have less time left than the duration of my time in Chelmsley Wood:o Whoa... better get to work and stay focused!! Haha Love ya loads:) Cheers mates. 

Elder Wright