Also, we can text! Before, our phones could only call. So people would text us, and we would have to call them back.
A quick update on Gertie: her soonest possible baptism date would be the Saturday after general conference, because she hasn't made it to church yet. Mostly because she still hasn't told her family. The end of the transfer is the Wednesday after conference, so most likely one of us will be moved to a different area then. So unless she comes next week, and comes to the conference viewing at the church, and we get permission to baptize her on a Monday or Tuesday one of us may not be able to witness it. Oh well, I guess it's when she is ready and her family is ready. She really wants this though, and we want it for her too.
So this week was pretty nice. We went to DUBLIN! Tuesday night we drove to Antrim, stayed the night there, and then drove us and the trio of Antrim elders to Dublin in the morning
We didn't really get to experience the city at all, just drove straight to the church building. But the multi-zone conference was good. Belfast Zone (us), Dublin Zone, and LImerick Zone were all there, and we heard Elder Kerr of the area 70 speak. He's Scottish, real funny, and real inspirational. We also heard from a few members of the local stake presidencies, and of course President Brown (mission president) and the assistants to the president. It was good, we came away with lots of stuff to motivate us and also things we want to implement in our work here.
On Thursday we helped out with Youth Night (mutual), because the whole UK is launching a new media initiative. The Book of Mormon musical is coming to London, so there is a lot of hype about it. But the Church is using it as an opportunity. They're buying advertising all over London for the mormon.org.uk website, and also web and TV advertisements. So they had our branch president inform us of this, and they wanted to have the youth get involved in member missionary work.
So we went in and helped them practice what to say if a friend asked about the church, and we also challenged them to invite a friend to the General Conference viewing at the church, or to Youth Night, or to church on a Sunday So we'll follow up with them. Then we also decided to challenge all the adults in the branch on Sunday to give a Book of Mormon to a friend with a testimony written on the inside of it. Hopefully something great comes of all this, but if not, then at least the members did their part.
Oh yeah I almost forgot, here's a fun story:
Last week, we got a phone call from the Dublin Zone Leaders. One of the people Elder Holm baptized in Dublin got sent to a psychiatric ward in an Omagh hospital! So we went to visit him. He's in the intensive care unit, so probably some major stuff going on. I didn't pick up anything completely bonkers, but he is a bit weird. Super nice though. He isn't allowed to leave, so we visited him a few times this week and took the sacrament to him. So yeah, pretty crazy coincidence how he ended up here.
Now that we have a car, we have been traveling all over our area. Our area is HUGE. on Saturday we were invited to President Nelson's home for dinner, in Fivemiletown. So we decided to go to Enniskillen, which is (kind of) on the way. We tried by a few former investigators, who hadn't been taught since there were elders there, about five years ago. None of them were home, but we did visit a few less active members out there while we could.
So yeah, the car is a great advantage. Also we are teaching a lady named Vera Duncan, who lives out in Seskinore. We used to sometimes go over with the Chamberlains, but now we go there once a week at least, and she is getting close. She is actually from Brazil, but lived in England and N. Ireland for a good portion of her life. So her accent is a combination of all three, kind of cool.
Yesterday we tried by this AUF guy. AUF stands for "Address unknown file." I guess when someone, usually a member, moves away without the church's knowledge, they eventually find out where they live several years later and send the missionaries to check on them. So this man, Owen, came to the door and was not happy with us. He lives in Cookstown, which is split between our boundaries and the Antrim elders'. So I guess they had tried by him a few weeks back, and so when he saw us he got a bit mad. He then proceeded to insult elder Holm; told him he was acting too stiff, had a weird stance, and needed to loosen up and lighten up. He said I was ok though. Hahaha, it was pretty funny.
Today we helped Kieron, a member, move. His wife and kids are not members, and they appreciated the help. So hopefully we can use that as leverage to get into their home and teach a bit, maybe try to get him to bear his testimony to his family.
And that brings us to now.
I hope you all have a great week.
Love,
Spencer.
<3
Picture: Super artsy photo of my scriptures and my badge.
