November 14, 2011

Woah, first transfer! I found out last night that I am being sent to serve in Grimsby 2.1 and a Swedish missionary named Elder Dundee! I'll be heading out tomorrow after the transfer meeting. I'll be in a 4-man flat, so we'll all be serving in the same area/ward, but technically we're whitewashing since they've never had a Grimsby 2.1 before. So don't send anymore letters to my Leeds 5 address! In fact, the mission office is always the best address to send letters to, even if it's a little slower. No matter where I am in the mission, they can get letters to me. Anyway, Grimsby! It's quite a ways away from Leeds, but so is everything since Leeds is the center of the mission. Grimsby is south of Leeds on the east coast of the country, right up against the sea. If you look on a map, it's right under a little jut of sea coming into the land. The nearest big city is Kingston-upon-Hull, so the zone I'll be in is called the Hull Zone. It's a pretty spread out zone with not nearly as many teams as the Leeds zone, so I won't get to know the whole zone as well as I have serving here in Leeds. There are no sisters serving in the Hull Zone, so it's just MAN-POWER all the way. And scripture power. It'll be exciting! Elder Bentley serving in Grimsby 1 and told me some great things about the area. Anyway, I'll tell you all more about it next week! Also, Christmas is coming up and I'd love it more than cake if I got tons of letters from everyone! So hope to hear from you all soon and I love you!

 

Elder Winder

November 21, 2011

I'm getting used to English food but I still don't care for it much. It's just so bland. Even the people here agree. I have, however, gotten to like Indian food, which is very popular here. Just as long as it's not too spicy. I still like Italian and Mexican most, though, and we get fed both somewhat frequently. I still don't like potatoes, but I have found ways to force it down, especially if it's mashed potatoes. Veggies are more of a problem for me because peas and corn are a staple, and I can't stand eating either, especially corn. However, people understand when I tell them I don't care for vegetables and I usually explain it to them before they prepare the meal. Carrots are common though and I do like them. I have gotten to like brocolli and caulliflower as well as cabbage and I already didn't mind eating lettuce, so I can eat quite a few veggies now. I still wouldn't make them on my own to eat. One thing that I had never really tried before that I have confirmed I don't like at all is beans. I just don't like them at all. So, beans, corn, and peas (especially a dish called mushy peas) are what I look out for at appointments. Some of my favorite English food to eat are meat pies (especially chicken meat pies), Yorkshire puddings, and sticky toffee pudding (which has custard in it, different from the custard we use in the States). Grimsby is a seaside town, so it's really big on seafood, which I'll eat, but I don't care for too much. My companion, Elder Dundee, is actually a professional chef, and he loves seafood, so he's pretty excited. He made pancakes from scratch the other day with no recipe and they were probably the best pancakes I've ever tasted. So things should be fun with him. He's only been out 6 months, so we both still have a lot of learning to do about missionary work, and he struggles with the language a little bit still, but it's going to be a good companionship and a great transfer. We are determined to baptize this transfer. Because we are starting completely from scratch with our teaching pool, we only have 1 investigator (who is scheduled for baptism as of yesterday!) and he was found from another missionary, but we are working very hard and getting lots and lots of potential investigators. Grimsby is known around the mission as a bit of a "tough" area, but really, it's not the area that makes the area tough, it's the missionaries who do. Henry Ford once said "Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right". We really believe we can do some great things here in Grimsby. We are able to work between the Grimsby 1 and 2 ward because we're Grimsby 2.1, so we have the power to find wherever we feel we need to in the whole general Grimsby area. The other missionaries we live with, Elder Dudgeon (district leader) and Elder Brown, are fantastic missionaries both near the end of their missions. We have a lot we can both learn from them and from eachother. Elder dundee is very easy to get along with and takes advice very well. We have a lot of faith that we can flourish here if we're diligent. Unfortunately I'm out of time to write now, so can you just write a general update for the blog? Thanks. By the way, send letters (not packages) to my address, not the mission office now. It's 39 Humber St., Cleethorpes, Grimsby, DN35 8NN, GBR. Love you all and hope to hear from you soon!

 

Elder Winder

November 28, 2011

Hey everyone! Sorry I didn't have time to write last week. In fact, I haven't had much time to write the blog posts at all. Even today I have to be quick because P-days are so full of things to do. Well, I am officially a Grimsby elder now. It's a seaside town with weather very similar to Seattle, for those of you that have been there. It's considered a fishing town and was once one of the busiest seaports in England. It's simmered down a lot since then and is just a nice, quiet town on the east coast of England. If you look on a map, it's just under the Humber River, which juts in about 50 miles on the east coast. On the other side of the river is Hull, so that's what separates the North and South sides of our zone. The ward members here are absolutely fantastic. We have been fed close to every night, and most of the time they are able to feed all four of us in Grimsby 2. I'm getting more used to English food as well, including my veggies (I can at least tolerate everything but peas and corn, which is a vast improvement on my tongue's end). Unfortunately, we are stuggling greatly to find people to teach. In fact, this week we taught zero investigators (we did teach a less-active). We saw a lot of success in Leeds 5, but many of them were foreigners, and Grimsby is about 95% English, so I think now I'm seeing more what English people are really like. These have been a very trying first two weeks, and perhaps the Lord is testing our patience, but He knows and we know that we will see a baptism this transfer. That means that we have to find people this week to baptize before Christmas. We are confident that this is possible and we are focusing every last bit ofour efforts on our goal this week. We are going to be more dilligent than ever before, and despite both Elder Dundee's and my inexperience in the field, we will see a baptism before Christmas. Speaking of Christmas, it is very good to see that England at least gets in to the Christmas spirit, even if most people do it for commercial reasons over religious reasons. Lights have been up for quite a while now since there is no Thanksgiving to keep Christmas preparations from beginning early. Speaking of Thanksgiving, we actually did get a Thanksgiving dinner, a proper one, too, by English family. So that was nice. Three of the four of us serving in Grimsby 2 are from the States (and only one from Utah!), so someone was bound to feed us. Well, I've got to be off now, but I would ask that you keep Elder Dundee and I in your prayers so that we can see some miracles this week! I remember a story in the book of Act where Peter is put into prison but then is able to escape miraculously because the whole church had been praying for him. Prayer really, really works. That is one of the great things I have learned thus far on my mission. Letters help too! (heehee) Okay, gotta go now! Love you all!

 

Elder Winder

November 7, 2011

Hey I have no time to talk but just so everyone knows I may or may not be transfered next week so if you're going to send a letter, send it to the Mission Office address, not to my flat because I may not live there after next Wednesday! Love you all bye!

 

Elder Winder

October 31, 2011

Sorry for not writing last week! 8 hours of P-day just isn't enough to do everything I'd like to do each week. Throw travel time and occasional dinner appointments in there and P-days can be kind of short. I have been doing well, though. I hope you all have as well. I am loving the autumn weather here. It's actually really cold but I'm weird and I like the weather. It has yet to snow, though. The temperature hangs around 10-12 degrees Celsius, and I am not sure what that is in Fahrenheight. Freezing temperature is 0 degrees (I paid some attention in 6th grade science) and it hasn't gotten near that yet, but it's right around the corner. Scotland has already seen snow and Leeds is in the north part of England, so it's coming soon. I remember it snowed pretty early in the year in Provo last year, so maybe the weather won't be as bad here, but at the same time, the winds are much stronger and bone-chilling here. Speaking of bones, Happy Halloween! I get to do nothing this year! Ah! My second favorite holiday and we're not even allowed to go knocking tonight. I did enjoy the branch Halloween party, however. We couldn't stay long because there were no investigators there, but I had enough time to attempt to chug 3 sodas in under 45 seconds. I thought it would be possible because I did one earlier in 12 seconds, but I realized I needed sufficient burps in order to clear room in between cans, so I ended up with 1:23. Not bad, but that record will soon be broken. We have a few people scheduled for baptism in the next few weeks, but we're not sure how many of those will actually happen. Expect to hear more on those in the coming weeks. One of them is as golden as investigators come, so she'll be baptized eventually, she just has to get to church. Hope you enjoy doing fun stuff tonight to spite me!

 

P.S. Lexi, if you're reading this, I got your letter like a month ago and I sent a reply immediately, and I just got it sent back a few days ago because apparently English postmen don't understand the way Provo addresses work (they are confusing, I will say). So I'm going to get that letter sent back as soon as possible. I think the letter to WIll, Ana, and Jerry got sent but yours just didn't for whatever reason (I had a separate one with your lettter). Interesting situation. Just don't think I forgot you! kbye!

 

 

Love, Elder Winder (soon to be Elder Winter)