Wazzz Up Guys! This!.....Is Elder Wright.

Wazzz up guys! This!....is Elder Wright.

 

We had a pretty good week!

Elder Ashcraft had a "self reliance" meeting 

he had to go to on Tuesday this week in Birmingham. 

While he went there, I went on splits in Loughborough. 

We had some good times over there.:) 

We had a lesson with one of their investigators named Pete. 

He's a pretty good guy! Big ol body builder guy. 

He's going through a rough time right now. 

He's feeling kinda worthless. 

His birthday is this week so they're going to all

make him a cake! That'll be good. He's a good guy.

This is a cathedral and cemetery. 

The work in our area is going alright! 

We FINALLY met with our solid investigator. 

He kind of hid from us for like a month. Haha! 

He was a solid one from the past elders that were here. 

He dropped off the face of the earth, 

until we met with him on Friday. 

We had a good lesson with him! 

We also saw him on Sunday at sacrament meeting!:) 

We are hopefully going to get him to a baptism this 

weekend and show him what it's all about. 

Hopefully, it will clear up any "unknowns" of anything

he may have. So that's good!:) 

Hopefully he can start progressing back onto the path. 

We've been doing a lot of member work again this week!

We stopped by referrals that were given to us by members. 

It was awesome...so we told Sandra Swepson that 

we stopped by all of the referrals she gave us 

and she was just so happy! Haha! It was sweet.

The members paid us a nice compliment. 

They said that the past few missionary teams 

have kind of been "rubbish" because they would never

really talk with the members or anything. They said that we're

doing great and a lot of the members are 

quite impressed with how we are happy and try to 

talk with all the members! 

That was super nice of them:) 

We also tried to stop by a less active guy named Charles. 

We caught him just in time as he and his brother 

were going into his house. They're a couple of old guys. 

Super cool! His brother is named Danny (good name;D ) 

and he's from London. Danny is a non member 

and Charles is less active. We happened to get into their home! 

Nice fellas! 

Danny was very impressed with missionaries and what we do. 

It turns out that the only reason that Charles is less active 

is because he moved and lost contact with the church!! 

He's just been waiting for like 30 years for someone to say something! 

Haha! We invited him to General Conference and they both 

genuinely said that they would love to come! 

We're hoping that will be a good opportunity to both

introduce the church to Danny and also to reactivate Charles. 

So yeah!:) Good stuff!

The weather here has been pretty dang good the past few days! 

We went and picked apples at Sandra's house again 

and it was just blue skies all day long! So great:) 

As I mentioned before, the Swepsons usually 

have us for dinner every Sunday. 

Well, they invited us to do what they call a "party piece". 

You basically just do something that you're good at.

Show off a talent. Anyways, we decided to do a weird little circus

thing. I played some creepy clown/circus music on the piano while

Elder Ashcraft juggled! They got a kick out of it:) 

They said it was the best party piece they have ever seen! Haha:P 

Then I played the Maple Leaf Rag for them:) It was so nice to play the piano! 

Anyways, it was a good week:) England is the best. 

I'm still trying to get used to British humour. Haha! 

WAY sarcastic, in kind of a rude way sometimes. 

But it's pretty funny!:) Well, that's about it for this week! 

Oh! We found out that Elder Ballard 

will be coming to visit our mission in November!! 

That'll be so cool! 

Have a fantastic week!:)

Elder Wright

"Forget Yourself and Go To Work"

Sup guys! 

Things are going good! T'was a good week in Peterborough:) Long week..but good! 

Let's see here...earlier in the week we went to Birmingham for a follow up training meeting. 

It was for all the greenies and their trainers. 

We were basically following up on what we've learned so far. 

It was good! I got to see some friends from the MTC and catch up with them. 

It's crazy how much of a friendship you can build with the elders in your MTC group! It's great! 

This week was full of trying different types of "finding". 

We tried hard to build good relationships with the ward members.

The members here are fantastic. 

We helped a lady pick pears from her pear tree.

We also helped a member (who's a teacher) with grading papers.

 Haha! I never thought I would be grading papers while on the mission, but hey! 

We tried to receive referrals from ward members. 

With those, it's super important to try to contact them right away and get back to the members. 

We did that a couple times in the week. But yeah! Lots of member work this week:) 

The work is still a little slow in our area! Grrr. 

But it helps to always look on the bright side of things.

Our investigators are still "busy" all the time. 

One of them might be in trouble with the law because of some minor offences. Haha Poor guy!

 My comp was super stressed out because our numbers were low again. But we're trying!!

The zone leaders were rebuking him for thinking about the numbers.

  

So here's a little lesson that I have learned. 

I'm embarrassed to say that I was thinking of myself in this situation.

 I was thinking about how I want to see success in our area and we just aren't. 

The Stamford Elders (in our district) aren't doing very well in their area either. 

Anyways, we started a fast one day this week. 

At first, I wanted to fast to help OUR area, unfortunately partially for pride reasons. 

My trainer said we should fast for the Stamford Elders so they can see some good things in their area. 

IMPORTANT LESSON. 

While on the mission, you CANNOT think of yourself. 

It gets you absolutely nowhere and will be a long two years if you're always thinking about you. 

Pres. Hinckley, (who was in my mission!:D) was also experiencing this same kind of thing. 

So he writes home, kind of complaining about this, and his dad sends him a simple letter saying, 

"Forget yourself and go to work." 

This quote is great!! 

Thanks to my trainer for teaching me this important lesson:)

So, now for some funnies. 

One day, we biked a ways out of town to contact some less actives. 

Well, my plastic bike pedal was kind of tight and didn't spin very well.

So I thought I would just bust through it anyways. 

It worked fine!....until the friction of it all MELTED the pedal off!! 

So I had to pedal back without one. Haha!

 We also saw some Pagan witches in town! It was kind of freaky. 

But yeah. Here is a picture of them. 

Ohhhh! We had kind of a crazy morning on the morning that we headed to Birmingham. 

It starts when I am half asleep, and my comp gets up to go restart the water heater. 

In my stupor, I hear a small explosion and see a flash of light! 

Apparently my comp put the cap to the water heater on a tad sideways and blew up the fuse! Haha!

 So we had cold showers. 

Then we head to the cash machines to take some money out for train tickets. 

When I put in the temporary debit card I was using, it said it was no longer valid and ate my card!

 I was like "What the flip!!" So I had to borrow some personal money from Elder Ashcraft. 

Now we're late for the train.

 While biking, I'm flying down the way and go round a corner and almost nailed another guy on a bike. 

We both slammed on the brakes and were sliding all over!  

Anyways, we finally arrive to the station. 

After waiting in queues for a while, we're SPRINTING to catch our train. 

Luckily, we just barely made the train!! Within seconds. 

It was an interesting and exciting morning! 

Well, that's about all I have for this past week! Things are good! 

I hope you all have a bright week over in the states:) 

Cheers!

"The days feel like weeks and the weeks feel like days." How true that is.

Hey hey!! 'Twas a good week! Man, time is flying. 

I don't know if I said this before or not but this is a quote from my trainer. 

"The days feel like weeks and the weeks feel like days." 

How true that is. 

Days can seem so long but you look back and can't believe it's been a week. Crazy stuff!! 

Weather has been weird. It was starting to get pretty cool around here, 

then out of nowhere, it was warm and clear for a few days in a row. Eventually the rain came back. 

Surprise, surprise!;) haha 

This is my church building.

Members here are doing well! I love them all! Such cool people. 

There's an American in the ward that's here for the army. 

He told us he can get us American groceries if we want. (Freak yes!!!) 

My comp and I were pretty excited about that:) The people are so generous! 

We had a dinner appointment everyday for the last week. Such great people!:) All of which has been good. 

Well...except one. 

So, here's the story. He's an older guy, into science and is pretty weird. 

Anyways, we had a DA with him this week. With his house, you have to walk 

up some stairs to get to the main part of the house. We started up the stairs and we first kinda smell something weird. 

It's a little dirty. Not too bad. As we walk up the stairs, it just gets terrible. It was such a bad smell! 

My comp and I described it as a dirty, diseased, hamster that drowned in his own urine 

and then was buried in the depths of an old fully used kitty litter box. It was unbearable! 

He was in preparing dinner and we were just trying sooo hard not to bust out laughing!! :) 

Hahaha It was sooo funny! 

We had microwaved steak with some cold chips and a side of nasty bacon. 

The bacon here is just not even close to the same as back in the states. 

The rest of that night, my comp and I were just burping up that bacon stuff. It was hilarious!:) 

We had a zone meeting in Leicester (lester) this week. We went by train.(I'm reading my tiny bible)

Zone meeting was awesome!:) Then I went on exchanges to Stamford. Man...Stamford is posh. 

A bunch of rich old people live there. 

You see a lot of Maseratis and Jaguars in the cobblestone streets. Old churches everywhere. Cool town! 

The missionary work there is VERY slow. I feel bad for them. 

But while there, I had my first fish n chips! Sooo good:) Battered cod, chips, then salt and vinegar over the top of it. 

Mm mm mmmm. Haha:) I don't think I'm getting too too fat though. Haha;P 

The work is still going! STILL trying to build our teaching pool. There are good days and there are bad days. 

Some days, it just seems like NOONE wants to listen. Other days are much better!:) 

Sometimes it's a little frustrating. Our numbers haven't been super great but it's important 

not to get caught up in the numbers. Obviously it's good to have success in that area, 

but if you really feel like you're trying your best, that is success in itself. 

As missionaries, our purpose is to 

"Invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel." 

If we're doing that, were being successful. 

Funny thing. So, one of our investigators is a black guy from Portugal. 

His English isn't very good, so we sometimes have to teach him with a translator or by 

switching our iPads to Portuguese so he can read. Anyways, he came to church this last Sunday. 

In elders quorum, there's a man with down syndrome and he was called on to say the prayer. 

In the prayer, he said "Thank you, God, for this black face." (Referring to our investigator) hahaha 

This is when you are happy that your investigator doesn't understand English very well! Haha:) 

Well, that's the main stuff that went on this week!

 I'm happy to be serving the Lord! It's the greatest:) Thank you for the support. 

I love you all! Until next week.. :)

Elder Wright 

Sister Swepsen feeds us every Sunday. She makes Brussel sprouts taste very good!

Hi everyone! 

So this week was pretty good!! 

We talked to a wide variety of people on the streets. 

Lots of people with different opinions and aren't afraid of making it known. 

Haha! But it's all part of the mission! 

I love my mission for many reasons, one of which is
talking to people from ALL over the world. You learn A LOT about what
different people believe. It's fun getting to know people's life
stories and everything. There are literally people from every part of
the world here. It's so crazy awesome!! There's a certain part of town
that is very Muslim. We decided to do some street contacting over
there just to try something new. The streets smell very much of curry
and everyone you see is Muslim. All the women are wearing the fab
hijab around their heads. For a moment, I looked around and seriously
felt like I was in the Middle East. Crazy awesome stuff! But I
have learned so much. We listened to this Muslim guy lecture us for a
bit, basically telling us to join Islam. "Muhammad was the last
prophet! The Quran is the word of God!" 'Twas very interesting:)

The members here are very awesome!! 

The ward mission leader is very good. 

He's trying to help us as much as he can. 

There is definitely no shortage of dinner appointments here in Peterborough. 

They feed us very well:) Mainly Yorkshire pudding with roast. 

It's super tasty though!! 

Sister Swepsen feeds us every Sunday, and it is very good
food! She makes Brussel sprouts taste very good! Haha But whoever says
English food is nasty is wrong. 

Because everything I've had so far has been pretty tasty:) 

We had a DA with the Richards. They're an older
couple. They've been here for about 40 years. But that man's stories
are super awesome to hear about! They keep a missionary journal at
their house for all the missionaries in the ward. 

It goes all the way back to 1988!!:o SUPER cool:)

So the work here is decent. It's has been a challenge finding good
solid investigators. We do spend a lot of our days finding in city
centre! We're just praying that the Lord will place some in our path.

So you remember Sergeis? 

He was a Latvian guy we met toward the start.
He's a very good Christian and super solid. Anyways, we were going to
meet up with him again but he never answered his phone!! So we
eventually had to drop him.. But yesterday, we were talking to that
crazy Muslim guy when behold....Sergeis comes up to us from behind and
is like "You have my Russian Book of Mormon???" 

So we biked back to our flat super fast and grabbed one. 

Yay!! He was like "This book is good. I want to read it." So he's back on the list!:) 

Please pray for him as he progresses with us! That would be fantastic:) 

But yeah, we got back in contact with a couple of our previous 

investigators and we're hopefully going to meet this next week!

Life as a missionary is super great!! I love it so much:) 

So one morning, we were biking to go to a lesson. 

Out of nowhere, my trainer totally flew over his 

handlebars and face planted on the ground!!
Hahaha It was quite funny (after I found out he was okay of course;))

 I guess the plastic thing around his front wheel was dragging. 

While he was biking, he was trying to kick it to bend it
back to normal, and then his foot goes through the spokes of his front
tire. It was an amazingly stupid idea, what he did! 

Haha But yeah, with the mission, so many funny things happen 

that are hard to explain and sometimes to remember. 

A lot of laughter goes on but it is hard to remember exactly what made it funny. 

Like we were walking around city centre and out of nowhere, 

this guy came over and was covered from head to toe with corn on the cob. 

You couldn't see any skin. That's how covered he was with this stuff. 

Like......WHY??? Hahaha
Anyways, life as a missionary is fantastic!!:) Thank you all so much
for your support!:) It seems like you're so far away! 

But the other night, it was a clear sky and you could see the
stars pretty well. It made me think, man we're under the same huge sky
of stars. This place isn't THAT far away and compared to the time of
eternity, I'm only here for a little bit. Thinking about that makes me
want to work hard, because these two years are short in the long run.

I wish you all the best. 

Love from the UK is sent your way! 

Cheers.

Elder Wright

The cows here eat greener grass, so their milk would be greener right?

Hello everyone!!

So this week was pretty good! I'm getting used to life in England and 

also life as a missionary! We ride bikes everywhere here in

Peterborough. I'm getting used to riding on the left side of the

road. One time though, I randomly switched into American mode and

started riding on the right. It was all good until a car was heading

for me and I quickly switched back to the left. Haha 

But yeah, everything is going good!

Our ward members are super cool! Well, there's one lady that is kinda

scary and we have a dinner appointment with her tonight. 

I'm kinda scared.

We went to dinner at the Casbon home the other day.

They're really cool people! But, they played a greenie prank on me.

They dyed the milk green. At first, I questioned it a little, but

didn't think much of it. I thought "Hmmm...must just be an England

thing." They mentioned that it was because I was a greenie...

 It made a lot more sense. 

It would make sense not to question it though right? 

The cows here eat greener grass, so their milk would be

greener right??? Haha just kidding;) It was kinda funny.

The people in town are cool! Of course there are the crazy ones. 

We have befriended a homeless guy. He calls us the "Jesus crew". 

Haha. But yeah, we talk to him about life every once in a while. 

He doesn't really believe in God and isn't interested 

in what we have to say, but he's a good guy. 

We met our first witch...and it was a he. We asked

him his religious views. He said, "Nothing really. I'm a witch though!

We make potions and lotions." Haha! Kinda weird.

 People listen every once in a while! Mainly younger people,

 and people from Eastern Europe (Poland, Lithuania, Latvia). 

Things are going great here in England! 

Hahaha sooo, funny story. 

We were street contacting, and we tried to talk to a

woman that just came out of a store. We said, "Hello! How is your

day?" And no joke, she HISSED at us. 

Like a cat! 

She was completely serious faced, and then started walking away fast. 

Hahaha! We were laughing for a while after that one.

The weather has been kinda bad for the last few days. Just non stop

rain. We get SOAKED when riding our bikes through it. It's a

fun experience! Being a missionary is really the best!:) 

We visited the Peterborough cathedral today. 

It was super cool!:)

 It's crazy to see such old buildings around here.

Homesickness is getting a little better! The other day, it really hit me hard. 

I'm a missionary! This is awesome!! 

I truly am happy and blessed to be able to serve our

God and find those lost sheep. I love you all! Good luck with your

lives! Thanks for all the support and prayers:) 

Cheers!

Elder Wright

(Oh, just a couple of names to maybe keep in your prayers. 
Michael Luciano, and Decio. Thank you!)

Can I get a drum roll please.......boom! I am serving in Peterborough!!

Hello everyone!! 

I finally get to write!! Yay! The rest of the MTC was great! We had a fun time, possibly too much fun...

 But we did learn a lot about how to teach lessons and all that jazz. 

They fed us a ton in the MTC! We definitely didn't starve there. We had an all you can eat pizza dinner one day, (So hell and damn are not swear words here) but after we ate, our teacher told the district "You guys ate a hell of a lot of pizza!" It keeps throwing me off. 

Haha Anyways, so yeah MTC was great. 

We then woke up early to drive to Birmingham. The mission home is in a small town next to Birmingham called Sutton Coldfield. That's when we took some mission pics, met with President Leppard, and learned our new assignments. We ate some lunch and then waited, and waited. Finally it comes. Can I get a drum roll please.......boom! I am serving in Peterborough!! 

My trainer is Elder Ashcraft. He's from California, super funny, and has been out for about 19 months. We're also white washing the area. That's when two new Elders come into an area not knowing anything about it. 

Usually they try to keep an Elder in the same area just to help with experience. 

We've spent some time getting to know the members, investigators, and just how to get around town. 

It is very much a biking area. Haha

We have also been doing a lot of finding in city centre. If you all want to check out where we're at, go onto google maps. Look up the cathedral in Peterborough. We're in that little city square next to the cathedral most of the time. 

Just to help you visualise where I'm at:)

But yeah, a lot of talking to people. A lot of people just really don't want to talk to us. I should say most people don't.
 But hey, if we can get one new investigator out of talking to 100 people, that one is totally worth it. 

My trainer said, "Get used to awkward situations, because as a missionary, your life is full of them." 

There are definitely awkward times when trying to speak to people.
But it makes it so worth it when someone really wants to listen! 

There are a ton of different cultures here in Peterborough. I thought we'd be teaching English people here in England...nope, that's not the case. Most of the people are from Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Russia, Iran, Nigeria,
 Kenya, China, Japan, and many others. It's crazy! Lots of Muslims.
But we try to learn "hello" or "how are you" in all their different languages.
They love it when we speak their language. Of course, I don't know any yet, that's just what I'm told. Haha

There's a funny experience with someone we taught while sitting at a bench in city centre. 

We got pooped on by pigeons during the lesson! Both of us got pooped on at the same exact time!
It's like they were aiming for us. We just awkwardly sat there and then tried to wipe it off with some leaves.
That lesson didn't last much longer...

Our ward has a set of Elders and a set of Sisters. 

Funny enough, one of the Sisters (Sister Tenney) is from SNOWFLAKE of all places! Super small world. 

Accents are decent so far. Only a couple that I can't understand. A guy sat next to me in priesthood opening exercises. He started talking to me and I had NO IDEA what he was saying to me...so I just smiled when he smiled, and laughed when he laughed! Hahaha

I had my first dinner appointment on Sunday. It was actually really good food! We had roast pork, vegetables, mashed potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, and some yummy desserts. 

Every house here reminds me of the houses in Harry Potter. We walked into a members house and I saw the little door underneath the side of the stairs and I told my comp, "Yay! Harry Potters room!" 

 The weather is really, really weird here. There was one day where it started off hot and humid.
Not a single cloud in the sky. Then at around 3 ish clouds rolled in out of nowhere. It started POURING.
We were riding bikes and got totally soaked. Then the day ended off with blue skies. Crazy crazy!

The ward here is great! Bishop is a good guy. A couple of members are from America. They recently combined the two Peterborough wards into one ward. There are 100 ish members I think. But yeah, things here are going great!
I am homesick... But I find that when I just put my mind to the work, I don't have any time to think of home.
I am super happy to be a missionary though.
 It has been a great experience to have so far! I will talk to you all next week! 

Cheers! 

Elder Wright

A Letter From The MTC!

Dear Family,

Your son will be departing the England Missionary Training Centre on Wednesday morning, 19^th August.  We want you to know how much we have enjoyed having him with us. 

Elder Wright is a fine young man and we are grateful for the opportunity we have had to work with him on a daily basis.  He is well-prepared for his mission and he continues each day to grow spiritually.  He is developing good teaching skills and is excited about the work.  He is ready for full time service in the Birmingham Mission.

We love this young man and are grateful to you for all you have done to prepare him for this wonderful time in his life.  Your love and continued support are important to his success.   Letters are always greatly anticipated and appreciated.  Please address all future mail to:

England Birmingham Mission

187 Penns Lane

West Midlands

Sutton Coldfield

England  B76 1JU 

United Kingdom

May you and your family be blessed as he continues to serve our Heavenly Father.

Sincerely,

President & Sister Preston

England Missionary Training Centre

P.S. Please see the attached photograph

PLEASE NOTE - Your son will probably not have another opportunity to e-mail home whilst still in the MTC. You may not hear from him again until his next preparation day in the mission, which in most cases is Monday.