It Still Hasn't Started Raining!

7 October 2013

Dear Family and Friends,

Hermana Houghton of the Florida Fort Lauderdale
mission with a monstrous fruit!

     First of all, Happy Birthday to my wonderful and amazing sister and good example Hermana Houghton! Hopefully you're following her blog because it's much more wholesome, spiritual, and well written than mine. Basically, she's getting really old though and I'm having a hard time thinking that either of us are actually adults now.

Who says the language of England is English?

     This week has been pretty epic. We've actually got quite a large teaching pool built up. It's just a little bit difficult because some of these are either not too solid, not progressing, or are always busy. We've basically decided that we have no time to do "normal" finding this upcoming week because we're going to be so busy contacting the Potential Investigators we've found already and going by Former Investigators who were dropped for no apparent reason and may just need to be followed up with to get back on track.

The pile of candy from our awesome new investigator!

     One of our New Investigators last week was taught by Sister Missionaries a long time ago on the other side of Coventry. She was happy to have us over and share our message but was always really busy. We finally figured out a time and brought a member who I'd never really met before. He warmed her up perfectly so that she was friendly and happy and readily accepted everything we taught about the Restoration. One of her questions was why Joseph Smith just established a church and didn't go out preaching like Paul. It was a really obvious connection that I hadn't really made before like that. We told her that in fact Joseph Smith did go out preaching the gospel to all the world and the purpose of the restored Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is largely to proclaim the gospel to all the world as did Paul. I realised just how awesome it is that I get to be a part of this, the greatest movement in the history of the world. I am an ambassador for the truth of God. It really just struck me like that. This is how the Lord works and our Investigator really understood and appreciated that it was the truth and that it made sense that Heavenly Father would do that and work that way. Unfortunately, her husband works in Birmingham 12 hours/day and so it will be a challenge to teach him as they're both very busy. The silver lining of that cloud though is that he works for Cadbury so she has tonnes of free chocolate that she offered (and we accepted). Also, Elder Maligon doesn't like the taste of Cadbury chocolate for some reason. The result is that we had basically a grocery bag full of chocolate and other sweets (since Cadbury which was bought by Kraft now makes all of their candies in the UK) and I got all the chocolate. Another important note: shipping prices just jumped really high so I can't send any to my chocolate monster/brother Levi. Darn!

The park outside the window of our flat.

     As you saw in the subject line and because when in Britain, do as the British and the British love to talk about the weather, "It Still Hasn't Started Raining,"  Admittedly, it did rain on us once which led to slippery bike pedals which led to me slipping and messing up my front gear shifters (ugh!) and it looks like it could rain most days (today it's looking particularly stormy). But the weather is nice. It's getting darker earlier in the evening and staying darker later in the morning. I'm a bit apprehensive because it doesn't get its worst for another 2.5 months and then it has to start getting better (=5 months=the length of my mission thus far where it will be darker/colder than it is now). It's kind of worrisome but that's alright.

     Also, Coventry is amazing! The ward here is really great--even if it's overwhelming to have such a big ward and so many missionaries. (200 and 10 on Sundays). The people here are great! The city is great! Cities and towns in the UK are separated by having a Cathedral but it's definitely a big difference. Coventry is one of the smaller cities but still quite a different environment from Leamington or Stroud.

I'm out of time so Lots of Love,

Elder Houghton