Blake - Birmingham England Mission

Catching Up

Nov 23

This week has been really good here but also really cold.I found out this week very quickly that I lost my gloves some where in transit from Cwmbran to Hereford because I can't find them, so for a few days I was wrapping g my hand In my scarf and putting that one in the handlebars of my bike to drive and the other one in my pocket. But as for missionary work we have been quite blessed when I got here
there were only two investigators and this week we have doubled that and to be honest it had to be the spirit because literally we didn't do anything to find them they came to us. One we met her while visiting a less active and we were having a nice chat with her and she is just one of this elderly women and a friend of hers just walked in and started talking with us and we talked about the plan of salvation and it went really well.
The other two were kind of planned but kind of not. A part member family here previously the wife and daughter weren't interested at all and would say hi and go in the other room but now they have started to
ask questions so we had a lesson with them so that was awesome. And we had an amazing lesson last night with A we just had a heart to heart about expectations and where things are going from here and that
was really good.We also had zone meeting this week and it was good but t we are one of the teams on the edge of the zone and so it takes us 2 hours to get to the meeting and the meeting only lasts 2 hours and then it's 2 hours back so it takes the whole day. But there is nothing we can really do about that we have to
be at the meeting so such is life. And this week we helped a family clear all the rubbish from there front garden because they just moved in to the house and the last owners left it a mess. So ya we had a pretty great week.
And this week should be pretty good as well.

Love Elder Poll

Nov30

For us this week has been a bit busy and slow. because of travel to get to a from places it is pretty lame because it takes us ages to get anywhere. but I did have a great experience this week. I got to go back to Worcester on exchange and I got to see A. we talked for ages we had games night that night as well it was kind of sad to see though because when I was in Worcester the games nights we had a turn out of 15 or so but now they are getting less than 8 out and that's counting the missionaries but it was nice for me mostly just because A was there, and he walked back with us from the chapel to our flat after so all in all we talked for about three hours just getting updated on what been going on. I also got to see quite few of the members while I was there I got to see the Nolans.

On the weekend it was stake conference in Cheltenham and it is really far away from here it is about a 1 to 2 hour drive and that was while I was in the car with a member and he was going about 80 the whole way there and it still took us ages. and because that members from here don't really go to the stake meetings unless they have to so the adult session on Saturday night did not many from our ward that went to that one and because it is so far away we didn't get back till 10.30. The conference was good and a member of the seventy came and spoke and it was funny because I knew him it was the same one that spoke and my first zone conference about a year and 2 months ago but it was funny because he knew my companion and so he called on him to come us and bear his testimony right in the middle of the general session of the conference. On Thursday we had district meeting and for lunch we had thanksgiving and it was funny because it was just missionaries all under 23 at the table and the sisters did all the cooking but us elders did all the washing up. and we also had the zone leaders there. So 10 of us and 5 of them were not American it was half and half but we all enjoyed it and the food was great. they even made the yams with the marshmallows. on Tuesday we went by some less actives and it was cool because one of them was really awesome and wants to start coming back to church. We met up with him today and went bowling and got to know each other better. it was cool. 

On Friday we had flat inspection and we did good she said we had the nicest freezer she had seen so far.  Hope you all well and have a great week talk to you next week.

Love you 

Elder Poll

Dec 7

So this week has been really good we had a really amazing experience with meeting with a less active member and he told us to come back on Saturday and teach his girl friend that she was interested. so that was cool. On Tuesday we had district meeting and president came and he did the meeting and it was so cool to be there with him and he also covered while he was the the safety rule in regards to the Paras attack because I don't know if you have seen the news but there have been threats against Britain I guess is what has been told us by some members so he just went through all that stuff with us. and we also talked about the new Christmas video also. Wednesday was when we saw mark and we also did a lot of stop bys. We found out that the river had flooded and we had to go through it, well not the river but through the part where it flooded and I got soaked up to my knees and so we turned back and I put on dry trousers and shoes and then we went around that part to get to were we were going. Then we went with the youth that night and  helped put together boxes for as charity that ships needed supplies to Africa and that was fun and I got all taped up. Thursday we had a lesson with two older ladies and then we did some stop bys and made cookies for our investigators after dinner. Friday we had to cross the water again because we were running really late luckily it had gone down quite a bit but we still got really wet but it was worth it because we had a couple of really great lessons. Saturday was really amazing part of the day followed by a depressing part. We came out of and amazing lesson with M 's girl friend and and it went really well and then we went out to go home and do our weekly planning and our bikes were gone and so we had to walk home... SOME ONE STOLE OUR BIKES not just mine but elder Bogaerts also. and so we currently have no bikes right now and so things have been a bit ruff. Sunday we had to be to a meeting at 9.15 for PEC and so we left our flat at 8 and just made it in time for the meeting so needless to say our mobility is severely disabled right now. but good news that is pretty cool wait for it .......wait for it..... I AM TRAINING THIS COMING TRANSFER that's why I have a really early meeting tomorrow. so ya this week is going to be good I think but also really busy and next week is going to be really hectic but should be fun. Love you guys.

Elder Poll