Coventry Transport Museum and a week in January!

From 20 January 2014

Dear Everyone,

Pictures first. Last P day after emailing, we went to the Coventry Transport  Museum. Coventry has actually played a really important role in the development of the automotive and bicycle industries. We saw some pretty cool stuff.

The 21 still runs from Wood End in our Area to Willenhall and it's the bus that goes by our flat to the church. Crazy that they've kept the number. Pretty cool. I'll have to get a picture of a modern double-decker 21 in Network West Midlands/National Express Coventry paint job.

The Second fastest car. In the world. Woa!

The Olympic torch. I think the plaque said it was made in Coventry.

 The Fastest Car in the World! We got to ride a simulator of the world record run which was pretty cool...

Elder DeHaan riding to an appointment... Just kidding. This was in the bike section of the museum.

We had to go way far out in our area to track down an address unknown file person in a tiny town called Barnacle. He wasn't there but we met this dog. 

Someone who was there cough cough made the comment that he looked like one of the current memebers fo the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. I'll let you guess which one. So there's a picture of the view on the way out and also the dog we met while knocking doors in the area.

We often talk to people near this pond called the Swanswell Pool (Google Maps it!). Unfortunately, just as I was about to take this picture, most of the birds randomly flew off. The idea was to get a picture of the massive number and surprising variety of birds. They include:

Pigeons

Seagulls

Canadian Geese

a Farm goose

Swans (a whole family with about five mostly mature adolescents)

common ducks

weird black birds

other black ducks with cool feathers on their heads

Rats. Eww. we often see them scittering around the edge of the pond. It's gross. 

Also, I know that rats aren't birds... Hopefully you all caught that. There are just so many birds there. It's ridiculous. People feed them like crazy too...

We talked to this guy on the street and he basically invited us to lunch at a really nice Portugese restaurant for lunch the next day after we told him we couldn't stay for dinner  that night as we had to go back to the flat because it was almost nine. He's from Bahrain and his daughter (who we met at lunch and who took the picture) is studying at Coventry University so he was visiting for a few days. He is super nice and wants to send me books on Islam and the American Missionary Hospital in Bahrain. Pretty much one of the nicest people I've met on my mission.  Note:  We did share with him the Book of Mormon and teach a quick restoration lesson. It was great.

Ok. So pictures take a lot of time. Sorry this is short.

This week has been good but also challenging. We've taught a bit but the people we taught weren't the most solid which was frustrating. Also we got flogged a lot (flogging is when people don't show up for their appointments). So basically, we worked hard and well but the work we did didn't have a big impact on people progressing in the gospel in Coventry C. We did find some really amazing people for other teams though! A while back we had a District Finding activity in City Centre of just talking to tonnes of people while the City Centre was busy for Christmas. Two of the people I found while on a mini exchange with one of our Zone Leaders were just totally not interested Chinese girls at Coventry University who barely gave us their phone numbers and seemed not interested at all. Then, the missionaries who are over their area got in contact and taught them and set them on a date for baptism on February 1st and they were at church on Sunday. Crazy. There were 12 Chinese Investigators (plus three Chinese Recent Converts, and one Indian Investigator) all of whom are students, at church on Sunday. We don't have many Chinese people in our area so they were all from Coventry B, E, and D but it was cool anyway. Basically, we as a district are going to baptise a whole ward of Chinese people to go back and prepare for the opening of China to missionary work. It's epic. While everyone else in the District teaches Chinese people though, we'll work on the Latvians, Eritreans, Nigerians, and Romanians in our area. They are awesome too.

Tonight we get the famous "Dodge Call" which shall be interesting. I don't know what's going to happen to me. Really anything could happen. I kind of want to get a fresh start in a new area but I don't really know. I like Coventry C and have learned a lot here. It's up to the Lord to send me where I'm needed. Kind of stressful and difficult to keep working in an area that you could be leaving in two days... but you don't know if you actually are leaving. It's just weird trying to explain to people that it might be other people who come to teach them but then it could just be us and ya... I just don't like the awkwardness of explaining it. Also, it's hard to tell members and others who you would want to say goodbye to because there's only one day between getting the information and departing... Hopefully it goes well. I am a bit stressed though. I'll let you all know as soon as I can about what happens.

I've learned a lot this week. Studying the scriptures thinking about how to teach and explain things to Muslims instead of just for myself puts them in a totally different light and teaches a lot that I think we all need to remember. Heavenly Father is teaching me a lot and helping me grow a lot too. I'm out of time though so have a great week!

Elder Houghton