Wednesday, April 3, 2013

"She accepted the invitation to learn more about the church and also asked if we could help teach her English."


Hiya!
So yeah, it's Wednesday. Monday and Tuesday the library was closed, because of Easter I guess.
So guess what? This transfer ends in a week! This Saturday or Sunday we'll get "moves call," where President Brown calls everyone who is moving. Most likely I will stay in Omagh and Elder Holm will get moved somewhere else, but you never know.
Usually I have my planner with me to remind myself what the heck we did all week, but we came to the library straight from doing service at the Lees' house, so I didn't have my planner on me. Therefore this email might not have as many good stories as usual because the days really just blur together.
The main story that stands out is Josephine. She is a Hungarian woman that we met a few weeks ago, and we gave her a Book of Mormon in Hungarian. We stopped by last Thursday to see how she was doing, and she had read all of 1st Nephi! It was probably just nice for her to have something to read in her language. She accepted the invitation to learn more about the church/BoM, and also asked if we could help teach her English.
We said we could, because it's actually quite common for missionaries here to do that. We have a box of English teaching material in our flat, so we looked over that and taught her on Tuesday. It was hard! Its difficult to know where to start, and pretty much we went over basic nouns with pictures. We'll probably teach basic conversations, which she already knows a decent amount of. After that, I have no idea how to teach her. But it'll work out.
We weren't able to teach Gertie, or to see her at church, but we talked to her on the phone most every day. Still doing great, it's just amazing and such a pick-me-up to talk to her. We told her that she has to get her husband's permission to be baptised, so she's working on the courage to tell him and the rest of her family.
I can't really remember what else happened this week, so I'll work backwards.
Yesterday, we went to Belfast for a zone meeting. It was good. The district leaders all had a meeting afterward, so those of us who were the companions of district leaders went and talked to people on the street.
It was awesome, we met a great lady after talking to only a few people! She had questions about where we all go after we die, and she hoped that she'd see her family again. It was perfect. Non-religious people who still believe in God are the best people to meet, at least here in Northern Ireland.
We ended up teaching her a mix of everything, even the Word of Wisdom. She brought that one up, asking why Mormons couldn't drink tea or coffee. We explained it all to her, and she said, "I think I could live that, the tea would be tough though." So she basically committed herself to live the WoW without us even asking! The sad part is that we had to just give her address and phone number to the zone leaders because she wasn't in our area...oh well. It was a good experience.
After that I went on an exchange with Elder Gill, zone leader. He came to Omagh with me, and it went pretty well. He said that he was confident that I could lead out the area next transfer, so he said that's most likely what would happen.
Monday was still P-day (preparation day) even though email is today. We went out toward Cookstown to check out some stone circles! We saw a sign earlier in the week that pointed us in the direction, and this week we decided to go find them. They weren't too impressive; the stones weren't that big or anything. But we had a good adventure.
We also followed signs for some "court tombs" out there. We weren't even sure what they were, but we couldn't find them. We found the site of one, where there was a poorly written sign saying "This is closed due to health and safety". The gate was still open, so we went in. We couldn't see anything out of the ordinary, so we kept walking further, until we started sinking into the mud. I guess that was the reason it was closed. So we went back.
Sunday was Easter! I really miss coloring eggs!!! That was a great tradition.
Easter was nice. We had a dinner at the McKennas' house this week, instead of Tom's. We thought Tom would be lonely without us, but when people found out we weren't going to his house they invited him to theirs! It was good that he wasn't lonely. We're basically everything to him.
I really am loving the work, and the area. I really want to stay at least one more transfer!!!
I can't remember any other stories. Maybe next week I'll catch yous up if there's something I forgot. I'll also send pictures. I'm trying to find a way to back my photos up some way so that I can send you guys my SD card!!! It's not even full yet, but it's been a while. So yeah, I'll let you know.
Hope yous all have a great week, and I will talk to you again in just a few days! (Monday.)
Love,
Spencer

Picture: Fun time at Stone Circles on Monday!