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

We did a funny skit on "A Christmas Carol"!

Waddup peeps! How you livin?? 

Before I go into my account of the week, I wish to apologize for the use of the words "damn" and "hell" so freely.  I guess it's just a different culture type thing! To be honest I have no ill feelings toward those words in the slightest just because I've been surrounded by it for a while now. But!....I realize it may set some people off and it's not necessarily uplifting, so I wish to apologize. 

Anyways...back to the account. :)

This week was pretty good! 

Things are slowly trying to pick up here in Cheltenham. 

Oops, I'm going to make this account short ish. Running out of time!!   There are a couple people that are cool that we are working with. :) We had a Christmas zone conference with President this week and did a funny skit on "A Christmas Carol"! Oh! Today we went and checked out Gloucester cathedral!! It was pretty awesome! 

Part of the hall was in Harry Potter which was cool to see in person!:) 

I'll show you all pics and whatnot. 

This next week should go alright though! 

I hope all is well for you all. :) 

We shall speak to you all soon! 

Love ya loads!:) 

(Sorry about the crap email this week! Not too much time)

Cheers!

Elder Wright

What up my peeps!! :) I am now in Cheltenham!

What up my peeps!!:) I am now in Cheltenham! 

And, let me tell you....Cheltenham (pronounced Cheltnum) is posh! 

It's a beautiful town, different from any I've served in thus far. 

The architecture is really cool, it's kind of got Roman elements to it all. 

Sandstone, marble, granite, etc. It's awesome!:) 

It's a lot smaller of a town than I expected it to be as well. 

But yeah, it's going alright!

My new companion is Elder Hodge, is from LA California. 

He's pretty cool so far! It's funny because he kind of looks like a homely kid. 

I expected him to be like that, but no!! 

He's way into sports, said he did a ton of surfing back home. :D 

He's got a nice taste in clothes as well. He's a solid kid as far as his 

testimony is so it should be a good time!:) 

Elder Pedersen (Norwegian in my group) is in my district as well. 

It's funny because we've been following each other almost the entire mission!!

 This is the fourth zone we've been in together and the second district we've been in together as well. Our district now is pretty cool! We've got Hodge of course, Pedersen, Barth (New York), Sister Price (Utah), and Sister Prasad (Fiji)!

Oh man, there was something hilarious that happened before I left Nottingham. So Elder Mordue and Elder Turnbow went to get a Chinese meal on exchange with our Chinese friends. Afterwards they went outside and Mordue had his iPad out. They were looking at some funny pics they took during the dinner and out of nowhere this pigeon took a GIANT poo all over his iPad screen!! Hahaha! :P Just as he was holding it, the giant turd came out of nowhere and splattered all over his iPad! :P 

Ah man, funny times!

Transfer day was quite full of travel! We took a coach from Nottingham through Leicester (which was awesome! I got to see my recent convert Callum! He's lined up to receive the priesthood soon!!:)), through Coventry and off to Birmingham. We then stayed at the mission home for a bit until the coaches got ready to leave again. From Birmingham we went straight to Gloucester in the coach! When I got there, I met Elder Hodge, helped some teams with their luggage and whatnot. Then we found out we needed to pick up another missionary at the mission home so we got in the car and drove back to Birmingham to pick up this Elder. We then stopped off in Worcester (pronounced Wuhster) to drop something off. Then drove all the way to Swindon to drop something off. Then off to Yate to drop the Elders off. Then back to Cheltenham for the evening! 

Haha It was quite a day of travels!:)

This area and zone is quite cool! It'll take a bit to get used to, as always when transfers comes. But it should be alright! In our area we have one kind of solid guy so far. His name is Chris! He and I have a lot in common as well, which is boss. :) So, we shall see where it all takes us! Anyways, I believe that's about it! Love ya loads!:) 

Speak to ya soon!

Cheers!

Elder Wright

It's a good balance between banter and laughs, and the spiritual side of things! :)

Hello hello!! 

This week was awesome!! It really was a good week! 

However there was a kind of bad ending to it. :/ 

But, I shall carry on with the account of this week! 

Monday was very non Pday like last week. We had a few lessons during 

the day with people that can only meet during the hours of Monday. 

But they are all pretty cool! Had a fun FHE in the 

evening with all the YSA and Denver:) Good times! 

We had a lot of district meetings this week! They had that combined district meeting/interviews with president again, only for Eastwood and Lincoln. Our district now though is probably the best district I've ever had! We have some funny district meetings! It's a good balance between banter and laughs, and also the spiritual side of things!:) It's great! 

Oh man...hahaha! So this week, I was on exchange with Campbell. He gets up one morning and he came downstairs and was just like "It smells like crap down here! What is that??" We had a look around and we found this old curry that was just chillin somewhere in the kitchen!! I then smelled it and quickly found out that this thing was the source of this rancid smell!:P When we unwrapped that thing, let me tell you....I think that was the closest I've ever come to throwing up from a bad smell!! This thing was absolutely disgusting!!! It was a project to clean all that out! Anyways, after we quarantined the flat, the source of problems was destroyed;) haha

You remember those Chinese girls I talked about recently? We saw Stella throughout the week and she's doing alright, but even cooler is her friend Amber who we first met last week! Amber told us that she loved the church and wanted to come back. And she did!! She stayed for the whole duration of church as well and absolutely loved it!:D We're hoping to put her on a baptismal date soon so we shall see where that goes!

Denver is still the legend that he is!:D We are now done teaching him all the lessons so we can now start "expounding the scriptures" upon him;D Yes! He's literally accepted everything...like he's a proper convert! It's so cool:) His baptism is only in two weeks as well! Awesome stuff innit. He's just been chillin with the YSA all the time so it's set.

Now we get to the bad news of the week!! I won't bother building any of this up so we will just get into the juicy details! I got the transfer call:/ I'm heading off to Cheltenham, which is out west kind of on the border of Wales. I'm really bumming about this news! Mainly because they came up with a rule saying that if you want to go visit a baptism of someone you were working with, the limit time for travel is one hour each way. And Cheltenham is more than that!! It such bad news!:( And Nottingham was definitely my favourite area as of now. The zone was awesome, loads of cool people in the zone, work was happening in the zone, the Ward here was awesome. And now I'm off!:/ But hey, it happens I suppose. New challenges, new people, new good times lie ahead!:) I shall let you know how it all goes! Love ya loads!! Speak to ya soon! Wish ma luck:)

Elder Wright

One day, every single one of us is going to be brought before the very God of this world and he's gonna ask us some important questions about what we've done with all our time here!! That day is as real as anything.

Hiya!! Y'alright mates? 

This week was actually pretty dang good!:) 

'Twas a busy busy week from the start of it, but it went super fast! 

I can't believe it....it literally seems like yesterday that I was sitting here writing last weeks email..:/ Time flies when you're having fun I suppose! ;) 

We had a nice pleasant exchange with the Elders in Notts 2 Ward. 

We kinda switch up exchanges every once in a while. 

There are a few different ways of doing it...you can all stay in your own area, 

you can all stay in their area, or you can split and have 1 companionship in each. 

We decided on the Tuesday to go ahead and work in our area, all four of us in the morning/early afternoon. After that, we went to their area, all four of us, and worked over there.

 It was quite nice to be honest!:) 

Oh hey...haha!

 So, before I tell you this story and whatnot, just note that yes, 

something stupid was done in both instances. 

We had iPad audits this last week...basically the office Elders check 

that there's nothing stupid and dodgy on the iPads. 

Well I got flagged for two things mainly...First, which I think I told you about last April, 

was when Elder Pedersen lit all the Christmas candy in the flat on fire. Second, was when Elder Campbell and I made a makeshift petrol bomb and videoed it. (It didn't even work, which was the crappy part! Haha) Anyways, the day they did this audit thing was the same day we had interviews with our Mission President. After a nice spiritually uplifting and encouraging interview, which I was quite happy with, President called me in again to talk about this stuff. Basically he kinda rebuked me over it! And he roasted Elder Campbell as well...real bad. It wasn't a pleasant experience having to be in that room and face the consequences! Haha (Nothing against him obviously...we were the ones that had done something dumb!) It helped re-emphasise a powerful truth!....One day, every single one of us is going to be brought before the very God of this world and he's gonna ask us some important questions about what we've done with all our time here!! That day is as real as anything! 

I witnessed probably one of the coolest miracle people this week!! His name is Denver. :) He's actually from Peterborough, but he's here studying at the uni. Basically, he got into contact with the missionaries in Pete' and actually went to church over there once. He came up here and just happened to sit next to a newly returned missionary in his psychology class. That YSA brought him along to institute one night and we took them aside to kinda chat. This kid is a legend!! He's one of the most solid people I've ever met. We taught the restoration and the room was just full of the Spirit. He kept on saying things like "I just want to stick with one church...I feel like God is leading me in the right direction." After a powerful moment in the lesson, we invited him to be baptized and he accepted!:D It just makes me so happy. :) His date is for Dec. 10th! AWESOME miracles happening over here in which I'm grateful to God!

I do believe that's about the major points for this week! 

Love you guys so much!!:) Hope all is well in Zion. 

Talk to yas soon mates!:) 

Cheers.

Elder Wright

It doesn't matter how eloquent you think you are, how much you think you know, or how hard you find it to open your mouth.....if you have the Spirit, THAT'S what's going to touch people's hearts.

Hey guys! 

Things are well over here in Nott'nam at the moment! :) 

It was a pretty great week to be honest! The highlight obviously the baptism of Vlademir this last weekend!! :D It was a great moment for sure. But we shall talk more about that laters!;) Holy flip is it getting cold!...seriously, it's ridiculous. These are the moments when you're eternally grateful you have a car!! Oh how lovely it is. :)  Speaking of....I passed my driving test!!! Yahoo!! We were really excited about that. :D It increases the likelihood that we will remain together for another transfer. It's actually a lot easier than I thought it would be so that was good. But yeah, I now have a UK drivers license. :) Cheers to that!

This week was busy, busy! Loads of travel and whatnot. Like I said, we spent P-day in Lincoln. We had to travel to Lincoln again in the week because of the driving test and also a district meeting out there. It's kinda nice because while driving to and fro appointments and meetings, we sometimes listen to talks and whatnot. We listened to a talk by this professor guy who spoke on the evidences of the Book of Mormon. It was a really cool talk to be honest...loads of cool insights and whatnot. Then we listened to a talk by Holland from the October 2012 conference called "The First Great Commandment". I felt the Spirit so strongly during that talk! There's just such a striking difference to me! It's nuts! Both talks were good in different ways, but because of the impact that the Spirit had on Elder Holland's talk, that talk now means a lot more to me than the other. I then got thinking about how important that role of the Spirit is! It doesn't matter how eloquent you think you are, how much you think you know, or how hard you find it to open your mouth.....if you have the Spirit, THAT'S what's going to touch people's hearts. Love it!

Another cool thing we did this week is we helped out with the Poppy Appeal! For those who don't know, Britain has a holiday that serves as remembrance for those who have served and are serving in the forces. It's called Remembrance Sunday. That will be this weekend I believe. Well for the weeks leading up to it, the Royal British Legion sells Poppies to donate to organizations that help out with that kind of stuff! Everyone walks around wearing Poppies on their shirts and coats and whatnot that signifies the Remembrance of those who serve in the forces. So we helped sell those at a department store, which was kinda fun!:)

Oh man....one of the coolest finding sessions I've done on my mission happened this last week! There's a recent convert YSA that lives in Loughborough, but goes to Nottingham University. He invited us to come to this Christian Union presentation at the uni, which is basically like a worship service for a bunch of different denominational Christians. We went with the APs (we happened to be on exchange), and it was crazy awesome!! It started off with a presentation by someone that was basically on the topic of what we missionaries call "finding". It was so awesome! At the end, they had a Christian band come to the front and we all started singing How Great Thou Art....loads of people were putting their hands in the air while touching their palms as we sang. It was a bit weird for us at first, because of course, our church doesn't do stuff like that. :P After a while I was like "Man, this is awesome! A bunch of different denominations coming together and singing." At the end, they had a mingle type thing where we were able to teach a bunch of people about Mormonism and whatnot. We got loads of potential people to teach from that!!:D The original idea of all this, and I hope it still can work out, is that we can give a presentation to this group of around 150 people about what we believe in the church! I really hope it works out!!:) 

Something pretty funny happened at this Christian thing. Elder Wagner and I showed up a bit late to it. We spent a while trying to find the room in the building! We finally found it though. :) I walked into the room expecting to just slip into the back, unnoticed. Well the way the room was set, we basically came in from the front where the presentation was being given. I peeked my head around the corner and just saw 150 people staring at me. Elder Wagner started to walk in while I peeked around, and when he noticed that we were at the front, he immediately turned around. Haha! We had to walk through the crowd to the back. It was greatly awkward and funny! I still remember what my trainer said, "There will be loads of awkward moments on the mission. Just embrace it!" Haha! The other Elders were sitting at the very back. They said it was hilarious that in the middle of this presentation, this curious ginger man pokes his head around the corner at the front. Haha:P

From all the good stuff this week, the highlight of course was the baptism of Vlademir!!:) We taught him the day before the baptism, and he told us (in broken English of course) "When I first met you guys, it was just for curiosity. Now, I am converted." It was so cool!:) The baptismal service went well...wished there were more ward members in attendance, but hey. I was able to confirm him a member of the church yesterday. Oh man, the gospel is great!:) I love it so much!! Anyways, I do believe that's about it for the week. Sure love you guys! 

Thanks for the love and support!:) 

Cheers mates!

Elder Wright

Man, I love Nottingham! It's a sweet area..I'm hoping I stay here for a while!

Us at the strait and narrow!

Hey what's up guys!! 

Happy Halloween indeed. :) 

Halloween isn't as big over here as it is in the States but it's getting there. 

 There were loads of uni students out walking about one night, all dressed up

and whatnot. Like heaps and heaps...we started blasting gospel music

as we drove past. :D haha! We got some great looks! :P But yeah, this week

was pretty dang good! It's looking like fall as well! 

Man, a good time of year:)

We had loads of exchanges this week!! It was crazy! It's just how it

all worked out, pretty much everyday we had an exchange and/or a work

over. There was a point in the week where we didn't have anyone

else....Turnbow and I just looked at each other and were like "Hey

man, I haven't seen ya in ages! How's life??" Man, I love

Nottingham! It's a sweet area..I'm hoping I stay here for a while! :)

Hey!...we got a baptism scheduled for this coming weekend!! :D His name

is Vlademir!!...and you guessed it!! Yup, he's from.........Angola??

Haha! He actually is from Angola. :P With a name like that you'd think he

was from that barren wasteland we call Russia. But hey! He's pretty

legit!! He was found in June I believe, and missionaries have been

working with him since. He speaks Portuguese so there's a bit of a

language barrier when teaching, but for the most part the guy is

cool!:) And now the baptism is all set!! He keeps talking about how

he's going to be a new man after this and everything. Yay!!:) It's

super exciting! It's cool to see him getting excited for it as well. :)

We taught another guy named Marcel. He's this sweet black guy

that grew up in Nottingham. He's a non-denominational Christian but he

hard core follows the teachings of the Bible. It's super crazy as well

because his views and beliefs are exactly close to the doctrines

in the church. He's a totally normal guy, he doesn't talk to

much, he lets you share stuff and actually does what you ask. It's

great!! The man will be baptized and when he is, he's going to be a

very solid convert. :) Oh man, it's so good!

Life is pretty good right now. :) Turnbow is way cool, got some good

stuff going on. Can't complain really!:) Oh!! I drove for

the first time ever in the UK! I'm now taking driving lessons for my

license (as I take my driving test on Thursday this week...Ahh!!) It

actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be! My mindset is well

used to the cars on the left. The only weird thing was when I first

got into the drivers seat, the whole car is to your left rather than

the right. It didn't take long to get used to it though so that's fun!

Pray that I pass!! Ahh:) haha

We had a way fun Pday today! We drove to Lincoln to be with Elders

Mordue and Lewis. They're way fun to be around! When we all get

together we just act super American and redneck! Haha! :P We

went into town and jammed at a music store (as Lewis is a legend

musician), went and checked out Lincoln Cathedral which I supposedly

heard features in Da Vinci Code...if so, that rocks!!

 Other than that, we are just chillin:) 

Seeing as today is Halloween as well, we

have to be indoors from 6 onward. It's kinda nice how it worked out to

be on a Pday:P haha

Well hey, I think that's about it really!:) 

Sure love you all! 

Hope all is well in Zion. 

Talk to yous next week!! 

Cheerio.

Elder Wright