Pedestrians. . .and, "I'm Loving It."

Dear Family and Friends,

     This week has been pretty good. We have built up this area quite a bit and are now sort of working toward a week and a half from now when we'll split it into two areas again. I was going to include here a picture of our super teaching pool and people that we're working with but it has information that probably shouldn't be online so I'm going to exclude it. (Rats, that would have been fun to see!--Luke's Mom)

     This picture is to commemorate the fact that we're pedestrians! It was a pretty funny sign regardless but also funny for us. Elder Smart's bike being stolen has really stunk as we finally had enough to do that we would need bikes but now have to walk everywhere.















 The other picture is from our idea and attempt to take a picture of a door with the day of the month for every day of September. Maybe it will be September 2014 when I actually do that because we kind of failed on the 2nd, 3rd, and etc. to now but it was a good idea anyway right!?

    Some cool things:

not Luke, but we can imagine it. . .

  1. I got a haircut! Sorry, I don't have any pictures. The guy who gave it to me is Polish I think and pretty cool. I let him do it how he wanted to and it is one of the best haircuts I've gotten from a man in a while. Oddly, he was bald but hey. The cool thing was that I tipped him a bit and after the tip, he "noticed" some hair growing on my ears (not nearly as bad as some former Elder Houghtons have ear hairs but they were there). So he sat me down and got this little fireball on a stick going to singe all of the hair off my ears using some cool techniques. It was pretty dang cool.






   2. I keep forgetting to mention that Leamington is right under the approach to Birmingham International (which only has one runway). So, we get to see tonnes of cool planes fly over all the time. Birmingham International is pretty small though and it's basically just a bunch of 737s, A320s, and Q4s. Still pretty cool though. Emirates flies a 777 in every day that I try to catch.

   3. The new missionary dress code allows us to wear Khakis. I got some Khakis today. Hopefully they help us not stand out as dreadfully as the baggy American trousers I've been wearing.

Previous hand-knit socks from the amazing and wonderful Aunt Greta

   4. I got some socks from my amazing and wonderful Aunt Greta. They are awesome and warm and handmade!

     5. The weather has been really nice the whole time I've been in England but the days are starting to get shorter (i.e. the sun sets before 9:30) and it's been a bit more cloudy than before. This summer has been unreasonably warm for England but I think I'll survive the wet. It's been a bit drizzly today and I actually quite like it.

     We've been really blessed to be able to get some work going in Leamington. The Branch here is awesome! There are just tonnes of really cool young families who are really nice and supportive and want to do missionary work. It's great. They're the best. I'm just really afraid for when we have to split Warwick up again. I have no idea what's going to happen at transfers with everything. I'm 95% sure I'll be staying in the branch here but not sure if Elder Smart and I will be splitting it up and getting new companions, if we'll get two new Elders to go to the Warwick house, if we'll get Sisters, etc. etc. Anything could happen.

    Our Investigators are awesome! I don't know how all my time has evaporated as I haven't really even said anything in this email but things are good. I'm working hard. I'm definitely learning a lot. This is the Lord's work and I'm so grateful to get to do some of it. It's amazing how He has us learn and grow as we do this for Him and for His children. I'm loving it.

Lots of Love,

Elder Houghton

P.S. Sorry my written responses to letters have been less than regular. I have some catch up to do today and finally some time to do it... hopefully.