TRIPLE WHOPPER

I bought a Giant Watermelon, chopped it up and put it in the Fridge. Just like Grandma did all the time. :)

Lovely wool socks that a member in norwich made for me!

We had a great week this week, we put 3 people on date and have been teaching in members homes all week! 

The bad news is that someone in Maldon downloaded a virus whilst i was there and it has just come to life on my camera, all my photos are there but they just don't show up on the computer so, until i get this sorted there wont be many photos! 

Greetings!

How's it going?

Despite being ill, this week has been great.

Yesterday, I confirmed our friend (Xin Liang) Neil as member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter – Day Saints. It was a lovely experience and the first of my mission. One of the members in the ward wrote down the blessing for Neil to read which I was really impressed with. Neil also brought a friend who we are now teaching this week. Look for gold where you find gold ey?

Me and Elder David are having lots of fun, we have been playing a lot of music for lucky/unlucky investigators, members and we have been asked to play at the baptism of someone we are teaching. We have been notified that our return to London is inevitable and so President has told us he expects some great musical displays from us whilst we are up here.

Elder David passed his driving test so we celebrated with a mighty Burger King. TRIPLE WHOPPERS all round. I had bacon and cheese also. Supersize fries and drinks. Diabetes never tasted so good.

So we have been having a lot of success with the members lately, especially with teaching their friends about the Gospel. We have 5 different families in the ward right now who's friends we are teaching and I am so, so happy about this. This has been my goal since I began my mission. The majority of our teaching pool has come by finding through the members. It's taken some work though! I've learnt the importance of Members seeing a missionary's personal obedience, diligence and relationship with our Saviour, Jesus Christ. The first two are exponential to the latter. Now, what I have come to learn is that the worst thing missionaries can do is ask 'Who do you know who we can teach?', I have had zero success from asking this question. Zero. How many names have you and I ever given missionaries when they ask this? We crease and cringe inside at the thought of letting these beaming little bundles of boldness loose on our precious non-member friends of whom we don't have too many of and the thought of losing them in this newly presented opportunity to share the knowledge that brings us a joy which fills us so much that we cry once a week about it… is sometimes too hard to comprehend and even make happen. So we say, 'no, no-one at the minute' or 'I'm working on someone I'll let you guys know' or 'all my friends are Mormon anyway!', or ' Crikey, we've just fed you, now say the prayer and leave'!  Me and Elder David have been using a method that is really working. I won't expand though, hopefully your missionaries will catch on and I'd hate to ruin it for them by telling you all our tricks of the trade. (The method came from President Jordan, who apparently got it from a Conference talk)

Now I will ask, what is a missionary's purpose? When that day comes when you do invite the missionaries around to meet your friend, what do you expect the missionaries to do? If Alma turned up at the door with a tag and a companion, how would you react? What do you think Ammon or Peter would say to your friend? Would they hint, suggest and merely touch on the reality of the Resurrection of Christ? Would they invite your friend to church even? Or would they do the thing which pleases their Father the most?  Would they invite your friend to repent, Come unto Christ and be baptised in his name? Would you let them? Missionaries know that members worry about offending or scaring away a friend from the Church but sometimes what we need is a little more faith, a little more trust and a little more prayer. "I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up." Doctrine and Covenants 84:88.

I love being a zone leader right now. I'll be honest; at first I didn't like it. I was really sad to leave Maldon and not be a district leader anymore. However, now I love it. It's so great to be involved in the different stages of the work, more areas and companionships and the responsibility of influencing many is something which is helping me strive to be a better missionary. Me and Elder David could sadly be getting split up due to him passing his test and so we want to make this week the best yet! We have both learnt a lot this transfer, the biggest thing I think is working together smoothly and humbly despite us both having many different opinions and approaches to the work. We have really worked at being unified and productive together, we recognised early on that our personalities could either be a weakness to us or be the catalyst for us to see miracles together and I feel like we have done just that. My favourite thing about us is the way that we teach together. We both study well and so we have a good treasure box of scriptures to use. But that's not the reason, I think it's because we both really want to help people change and repent, so we feel  comfortable saying things that need to be said and doing things that need to be done. And we pray A LOT. I think before we have even leave the flat in the morning we have prayed about 10-12 times!

I hope you have a great week.

I love you all,

Hugs and handshakes,

Elder Nolan

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