It's the Lord's Work!

Letter from 21 October 2013

Dear Everyone,

The new jacket!

I'm never really sure what to title these general emails. Also, I mismanaged my emailing time today and despite thinking that I would have a lot, I now have very little left to write this email. It's pretty much always raining now... and my Patagonia jacket, despite many attempts on my part to waterproof it, is still not waterproof and is basically useless when the rain actually starts. Ugh. I think American waterproof is different from English Waterproof. So, I decided to get a new medium weight English Jacket. I think it may actually be French though. In the past four hours, it has been pretty waterproof though so I'm happy right now. We'll see how it lasts the week. Fortunately, it was pretty cheap. It also reinforced the fact that any missionary coming to England from the States should wait to buy a coat, trousers, shirts, suits, and basically everything else until he or she is here. I wish I'd followed that advice six months ago. Woa! Did you catch that, I'm rapidly approaching the 6 month mark. It dawned on me the other day that six months is a long time. I can't believe I've been out here for that long and I have a lot of work yet to do.

So basically, I feel really bad that this is so short but I'll just share a quick spiritual thought. I was reading in Alma today and came to some cool insights. From my weekly report to President Rasmussen:

"Today I made an interesting connection between Captain Moroni and Mormon which was quite insightful while reading in Alma. Basically, they were both amazing and did very important work but Captain Moroni was accepted and the people were blessed and righteous while Mormon was rejected and the people were punished and wicked. I was comparing their two situations and efforts and realised that neither was more valuable or more virtuous than the other. Both of them realised that it was the Lord's work, not their own and so regardless of the effects of their efforts, they were confident that they had done their best and it was in the Lord's hands. Now Mormon (who named his son after Moroni) is a name held for good and bad around the world and an angel named Moroni is on top of many of the 120+ temples around the world. Both of those names have major significance in the Church of Jesus Christ. That's pretty cool. I'm now working on becoming more like them and trusting in and relying on the Lord as they did."

So that's that. Sorry again that this is so short.

Lots of Love,

Elder Houghton

Luke was able to visit the Benbow Farm and Gadfield Elm Chapel--sites of early (1840) LDS missionary work and worship in the UK.

A painting at the Gadfield Elm Chapel

Elders Maligon and Houghton at the Benbow farm/pond