Veteran's Day 11-11

"...that rule has caused more inconvenience than anything for missionaries and members worldwide."

Well, week one in Greenock has been alright.
It rains every day. Literally. Except today; it's bright and sunny outside. But it will probably rain later on.
The branch here is very small. Smaller than Omagh. I think we had 19 members (not including us) at church yesterday.
But the funny thing is, they have a HUGE building to meet in! Apparently there used to be a big army base here, so lots of Americans were over and I guess enough to have  a huge ward. So now we have a tiny branch and tons of room.
It's a unique church; it has three stories. The main level has the chapel and the Sunday school/priesthood/relief society rooms. Upstairs they have offices, primary, library, and storage. And down in the basement there used to be a gun range or something? I haven't had the chance to see it yet but apparently it's there.
This week we've done a load of less-active work. Most are old sisters who live on their own, so we have to stand on their doorstep and chat and share a message with them.
And there's only a few adult males in the ward, and I think none of them actually live in Greenock, they are in surrounding towns and they all have jobs and stuff so it's kinda lame. I feel like that rule has caused more inconvenience than anything for missionaries and members worldwide.
Let's backtrack!
Last Monday and Tuesday we had fun visiting a few people. We also taught Stewart, and we had a member with us from a similar background but is now an active member with a wife and two kids in the church. So he was perfect as a friend for Stewart.
Also we visited Jack and June Topen, a sweet old couple, The Keoghs, the Williams, and a few others. We taught Mark, who seems to be slowly making his way toward baptism hopefully maybe.
Elder Pallin and I actually talk and have conversations in the flat. He loves singing...all the time. Which might eventually get on my nerves, but I'll try to not let it. Sometimes we have disagreements on how the work should be done, but overall it's a good companionship.
Here's a funny story; I was by myself on a train from Dundee to Edinburgh! Quite the adventure. Apparently they thought I could handle it and was responsible enough.
Turns out it was a bit weird in the end because at the train station I saw one of the YSA girls from our ward and she was going on the same train, so I ended up sitting by her and it was even weirder than being totally alone! Haha! But it was nice to have someone to talk to rather than being all alone with just my sadness of leaving Dundee.
Hey, so ya know how when I got to Dundee the wheel on my suitcase got shredded and I had to drag it and ended up buying a new one? Well...the same thing happened to the other suitcase that I came out with when I came to Greenock.
Probably because those suitcases are kind of old and cheap and have lasted a long time because they have only been in cars and airports and such. But the sidewalks here are super rough, so I guess the heavy suitcase combined with the bumpy sidewalks plus old wheels makes for broken wheels. So I might buy a new one, or I might just drag it to my next area when I move.
Thursday was Halloween. We had to stay inside the flat after 6:00 pm.
The rest of the week we did a lot of travelling to get to less-actives' and potential investigators' homes to see if they are in. Something might need to change here if we want to see miracles. Gotta do some finding.
Overall a good week.
Love you all!
Elder Burt

Photo: Jack and June

Blonde Jesus with a blue robe (in the Liff Road bishop's office)

Photos from the train from Dundee to Edinburgh. Amazing views!

"Every minute the reality of me leaving this great place increases. I am honestly quite bummed..."

Hey y'all!
So here's the news you're all waiting for...I'll be moving to Greenock, which is on the southwest of Scotland. My companion will be Elder Pallin, who just got done being trained. I'm excited, but more sad.
I hoped to stay for another transfer at least. The area sounds exciting, but I'm definitely gonna miss the people here so much. I want to see Stewart baptised! But oh well, that's missionary life for ya.
Speaking of Stewart, he's doing great. We taught him a few times last week, and he's still pretty receptive. He came to church in a black suit, dress shirt...and chains of course!
Participated well in the elders quorum lesson, and it was a really good one on obedience. Gospel Principles' lesson was on chastity...that one was awkward.
Our teacher started talking about what the law of chastity is, and Stewart raised his hand and openly admitted to breaking it with two women at the same time. It was hilariously awkward...everyone in the class was shocked, and I think the teacher and we elders were the most embarrassed. But it's ok, I'm sure the new elders will teach him that that's a really really bad thing to do.
Best part though: He came to a baptism of the Bingham sisters' investigator. He asked us who he needs to talk to for him to get baptised. We told him that we'd discuss it this week, so hopefully today we set a date with him and also help him understand the significance of the covenant and whatnot. Exciting though!
We taught Kossi a few times this week. Once just with us, and it was really difficult. But Saturday we had Scott with us and it was awesome as usual. We tried to teach simply in English, but it still wasn't clicking with him. So again we just let Scott take over in French and he did great.
Mark is still doing alright. Still nervous about church, but someday I'm quite sure he'll get baptised if the elders keep teaching him and maybe give him a wee push, and also if his member-friend Cheryl keeps inviting him to church.
Sorry it's a bit short this week...I feel like nothing else noteworthy happened.
Every minute the reality of me leaving this great place increases. I am honestly quite bummed to leave...but at least Elder Winn and I aren't together for three transfers like I was with my trainer.
Oh well. Hopefully next week will be full of stories about how great Greenock is!
Love you all. You're in my prayers!
Love, Spencer

Photos:
Charlotte Street (sorry, couldn't find the rest of your names...)

Dundee United stadium

Goofin around with Elder Gomez

Dennis and Avril Campbell, awesome and hilarious members

"I am still dreaming of bringing a family into the church..."

Hey guess what? I finally bought some cool Scotland stuff for yous last Monday. I'll grab a few things more today and hopefully send it in the next couple days.

I thoroughly enjoyed this week; particularly Tuesday and Friday. Because I was on exchanges with some elders in my district, and we worked, taught, etc. in real good unity. I look forward to exchanges; sometimes probably too much. Oh well.

Highlights of this week: Fiona and Stewart.

Fiona was a nice young mother we met in the street. We made an appointment with her, but she was busy and said to come back the next day. 

We did, with a member from the ward. He's a super good missionary; he talked more than us but I was totally ok with it. He related well to her, they had kids of similar ages, he is a convert to the church, he told his story, testified of the importance of families and how we can be together forever. It was really good. 

Then the same guy came with us to a few other appointments, most of which fell through but it was awesome having him with us.

We met Stewart on Friday. He lives on floor 15 of a high rise building (aka "high flats" or "multi's"). 

We were a bit early to our appointment with our good friend Paul, so we decided to just chap as many doors as possible in shortest time possible. So we started on the top, planning to work our way down. But the first door we chapped, we met Stewart and he let us in. 

He seems pretty solid for the most part. We shared a brief message with him, introduced the Book of Mormon, set a return appointment for the next day, and then had to dash to our next place. 

Went back the next day, he had already read up to 1 Nephi, chapter 11 or something. He understood it quite well too. 

He was a bit confused, because when we told him about Joseph Smith and the Gold Plates and stuff, he got a bit confused because he thought we were talking about Nephi and the Brass Plates. But we cleared it up. 

After the lesson he insisted on showing us a clip from a DVD containing DMX's conversion story to Christianity...it was really weird. 

He's really into the rap scene. He showed up to church on Sunday, wearing baggy khaki trousers and a matching jacket, with a big golden chain with a dollar sign medallion. Everyone complimented him on it. 

He participated a lot in priesthood and Sunday school which was good, although it was mostly him trying to make jokes, and he did the same in sacrament meeting...(when they brought the bread around, he said "no thanks, I had toast this morning") haha, but he really enjoyed church. 

He's been the first investigator to come to church in quite a while. It was good. Maybe we'll teach him about reverence or something this week.

Also we got a new bishop this week, Brother Keogh, the dad of the huge family that feeds us often, is the new bishop. Pretty exciting I guess. He'll be great, but we'll miss Bishop Murray a lot.

Cool update on our investigator Mark; turns out he is friends with a lady named Cheryl, and turns out she hasn't been to church in ages and wants to come back. She came to Mark's house with us, and she encouraged him to get baptised and said she'd love to be there if he does decide to. 

Also she tried to convince him to come to church. She was set on coming yesterday, but for some reason she didn't show up. We'll find out today or tomorrow hopefully. 

But I thought it was kind of a miracle; we met Mark while tracting, but then we later find out that his best friend and neighbour is a member, and the involvement of both of them in the lessons will increase the chances of her becoming active and also of him joining the church. No coincidence there that's for sure!

Overall the work is going great, I find joy even in the smallest of things like having a laugh with a random uninterested person on the street. 

Ooh, that reminds me, another story. There's this group of teenagers who just hang around the City Centre every night. They used to give us hassle, like yelling "Hey Jesus guys!" every time they saw us, or saying "Jesus is stupid!" just to get a reaction...but as we keep seeing them, they've started asking questions, like what we actually do, why we do it, if we get paid, etc... 

Then one night we saw one of the Bingham elders give a few of them Books of Mormons...my initial reaction was that they wold just throw them away or something...but we met the group last night and one of them said he's reading it and stuff, and we had a three minute conversation on life in general, and members of the church who he knows. 

So, slowly we're converting a whole group of "chavs" or "neds" (punk teenagers). That would be so cool if all of a sudden we baptise 20 neds and quadruple the young men population of the ward, and change lives and stuff. Might be a long shot, but it would be super cool. Also I am still dreaming of bringing a family into the church...I think that would be soooo cool and fulfilling and spiritual!

Anyway, hope yous all have a great week. I might very well move to a different area in a week and a half, so look forward to the big news next week!

Love,

Spencer

"...keep an eye out for a Scottish guy...he'll be easy to spot driving on the wrong side of the road and wearing a bright red kilt."

Hello wonderful familia!

This week was quite stupendous. It all started off with last Monday, when we went and played "chair football" at the church. (From here on out, "football" will mean "soccer" because that's what they call it here ya know.) 

That's where we each have a chair, and the goal is to hit other players' chairs with the ball. If your chair gets hit, you sit down. If the person who got you out gets out, you're back in. 

So it goes on for a while, until one person has gotten every other player out. It's way fun. We also just played a 3v3 match in the gym (us, the zone leaders, their trainee, and a member of our ward). Probably the best p-day so far.

Now before I move on to the missionary work part of this week...have you guys heard of the movie "Sunshine on Leith?" It's a Scottish movie, from what people say here it's set in Edinburgh and the plot revolves around songs by The Proclaimers, who are Scottish (kind of like Mamma Mia is based on Abba songs). 

I've heard it's really good. Not sure if it's made it to Utah yet, but you should all watch it somehow and tell me how it is. And tell everyone in the theatre that I'm basically one of them.

This week I went on two exchanges, both in trios. Conclusion: Trios are awkward when trying to talk to people on the street, but a lot more fun when hanging out together during down time.

Elder Winn's birthday was on Thursday (21). I tried to make a cake, but apparently I put the oven on the wrong setting so it burned the top and left the inside all runny. It was ok though because we just ended up eating the raw cake batter. 

The senior missionary couple Elder and Sister Bylund and also a family in the ward made it a successful birthday for him. So that was nice.

We've been doing a lot of street contacting. From my conclusion: It allows us to teach more "lessons" each week, but as far as finding people who are interested in investigating further it's not that effective. I think a mixture of tracting and street contacting is good.

In our attempts to contact inactive people on the ward list, we found quite a strange coincidence: We were looking for a lady called Carol, and at her house we met a guy named Paul who is a member, but Carol had long since moved out. And apparently he might be moving to Riverton soon...weird! 

So tell the Wests to keep an eye out for a Scottish guy in the next few months...he'll be easy to spot driving on the wrong side of the road and wearing a bright red kilt.

Yesterday was pretty cool; the sister missionaries in another ward in Dundee met a guy from Chad who speaks French but only a bit of English, and he lives in our ward boundaries, so we took an returned missionary who went to France with us, and he just taught the first lesson to this guy in French. 

We just sat back and listened, quite content that the member was re-living the glory days of his mission and the African guy was happy to communicate with someone who he can understand better. So we're excited to keep working with him. 

Next time we'll probably teach in English, and the member will be there to translate if necessary. Fun fun!

That's it for cool stories this week. Lots of street contacting in the City Centre, tracting, visiting less active members, etc. 

Oh wait, one more; in the City Centre we had split up so we could talk to as many people as possible (still within sight and sound) and I saw this guy sitting on a bench crying.

I went up and just asked what was up. At first it was awkward because he was embarrassed to be crying in public, but then we got talking and he just told me about how homesick he was and how it's even worse because his mom was in the hospital. 

Didn't really talk much about the gospel, but he was really happy by the time we were done talking. His girlfriend walked up to him kind of confused as to what was going on, but in the end they said they might both be interested at a later time. So it was kind of cool to see someone positively affected by just a short conversation.

Hope yous all have a fantastic week! May the road rise up to meet you.

Love,

Spencer

Photos: Trio exchanges!

"Well, Billy's up a gum tree so see ya."

Hello Dearest family!

This week was pretty grand. 

Starting off with last P-day, we played a bit of mini golf, and then played on some dangerous playground equipment. Picture attached. 

Then Tuesday we had a decent lesson with our investigator Mark...slow going but he'll get there someday somehow. 

Then that evening the young men's group invited us to their activity to taste the food they made...the challenge was to make the best/cheapest/healthiest missionary meal. 

Some were pretty mingin', but it inspired me to be more creative with food. One was chicken ramen noodles with cheese on top and cut up hot dog and beans. Couldn't decide if it was nasty or genius. But yeah, I'm gonna experiment and let you know how it goes. I bet you are so excited.

Wednesday I went on exchanges with an elder...it was super fun, he was just super goofy and it gave me an opportunity to release all my pent-up goofiness. 

But at the same time it was hard to focus on the work at times. If I had a super goofy companion 24/7 I'd have to try hard and find a balance. It was a super fun exchange though.

Thursday we went to a funeral! I was sitting by Elder Farnsworth (the one we met at the airport) and I whispered to him "I put the 'fun' in 'funeral'" and we had a wee silent chuckle to ourselves. 

Luckily we were in the back of the chapel; the lady's family was all really sad and they weren't Mormons. Mormons seem happy at funerals. 

In this country, everyone gets cremated because apparently the cemeteries are too crowded.

Friday we had a zone conference. The training was pretty good, I learned a lot...then we talked about family history. They are trying so hard for us to use it in our finding efforts, but so far I've seen 0 success when we've tried in the past. But we'll try again I guess.

Saturday I had a good Scottish food experience again. We went to a chippy, and I got a deep fried Mars bar. Soooo good. So unhealthy. 

Don't worry; I haven't put on weight while I've been out, as most elders do...but I haven't lost any either and that's my goal. But that's another story.

Conference was so good!!!!! 

Being on a mission I feel like I get super excited for it because: 

1) We get to rest from walking around and such for eight extra hours in one weekend.

2) We are always spiritual so having them speak to us is like an extra super spiritual high. 

3) They're like celebrities to us. 

I learned quite a lot, which I'm sure yous did too. My favourite line that I am going to use when talking to people: "We are all hypocrites...come and join us." 

Also I loved Edward Dube's talk, mostly because it's fun to listen to his voice. And that one guy who kept saying "exclamation point!" was super cheesy. 

But Elder Holland's talk was suuuper good! Especially for our area, where we teach a lot of people with mental problems of some sort.

I noticed during conference, and throughout my mission, that EVERYONE prays for the missionaries. ALWAYS! In the ward, in conference, everywhere. Not sure if that's changed recently, or if I'm just noticing it now because I am one. But it's nice that so many people are praying for us.

Funny story: We found a guy who was fairly receptive; we taught him about the Book of Mormon on his door step and gave him one, and he said he'd read it and we could come back two days later. We did so, and he answered the door, said to hold on a minute, and then another guy came to the door and said, "We don't really do that sort of stuff in this house." 

We told him that Billy said we should come back, and he said "Well, Billy's up a gum tree so see ya." And closed the door. No idea what it even meant but it was pretty funny.

Well, that's the week. I hope you enjoyed it. I sort of did, it was a bit drab in retrospect. Maybe hopefully this week is full of unexpected fun and hidden surprises!

Love you all!

--Spencer

 

Photo:
Playground thing, where we sit or stand on the ropes and one person pushes us around and around like a carousel....and then sometimes we fall off! It's fun!

"...families are central to God's plan, and to the gospel, but sometimes we get too caught up with the Restoration and the Book of Mormon..."

Let's start backwards this week!

Yesterday was really nice at church. I may have mentioned before, but our bishop is very very, very missionary-minded, and it's awesome. 

It was the 5th Sunday, so all the Priesthood and Relief Society met together in the chapel. Bishop requested that we teach the Restoration lesson to the whole crowd, to help them understand how a first visit with missionaries would generally go. Then he encouraged all of them to invite us over to share all the missionary lessons with their families, hoping that if they do this, they will feel more comfortable inviting their friends to listen to our message, and the spirit of the lessons will maybe prompt them to be more bold and inviting. 

I felt kinda awkward teaching a lesson in front of 100ish people, but a member of the ward approached me after church and said that his favourite part of church that day was when we shared the lesson. So I felt pretty good after that. Also a girl from the ward is leaving on her mission to Oregon next week, so she gave her farewell talk, and also her dad and uncle spoke about their missions. They were all really good talks. 

Recently the bishop has had returned missionaries talk about what they learned from their missions, and converts talk about their story, just to get the ward more pumped about doing missionary work. Some of them have just talked about the fun or crazy stories from their missions, but the returned missionary talks yesterday were really spiritual and inspirational. 

Here's a cool thing: When planning out last week's district meeting, I felt like we need to focus on FAMILIES more in our missionary efforts; myself and missionaries in general. 

I taught/we discussed about how families are central to God's plan, and to the gospel, but sometimes we get too caught up with the Restoration and the Book of Mormon when talking to strangers about the gospel. So we all committed to spend more effort talking about eternal families, how the gospel and the church can strengthen and unify families, and so forth. 

When preparing this lesson, I realized how much Preach My Gospel talks about families in the section about finding people to teach. So, this week as we have had families in mind, praying to find families to teach and testify, and asking people about their families, we've seen quite a bit of success. 

We have a few young mothers and fathers who want to learn more, and in a lesson with an investigator we decided to just sit down and ask him about his family, and he was really excited to talk about his kids and how he hopes to re-unite with them someday soon (divorced or something). 

The spirit is always there when talking to people about their families, according to Preach My Gospel and also my experience this week. You guys are probably bored by all this, but I found it amazing and miraculous how much we had been overlooking when it comes to families!

Other than that, this week hasn't been too eventful. We have spent quite a bit of time trying to contact inactive members on the ward list, and then knocking 10 doors on each side if the person isn't home or is not interested. Still amazes us how many people are technically members, and yet they have no recollection of the church. Some are a bit angry when we show up, others are really nice but not interested, and maybe one we met was super nice and maybe sort of interested--gave her a family proclamation and she said we could come back another day.

So yeah, the work is going pretty well. Small miracles here and there, tender mercies everywhere. Thanks for being such a great family! I canny wait to be with yous forever!

Love,

Spencer

 

Photo: Smiling Jesus! Personally signed by Del Parsons, to a lady in our ward! 

Some story behind it, apparently she always wondered why there are none/few pictures of Jesus smiling. A friend of hers knew the artist, and bought her a copy. It amazes me how you can tell it's the same artist as the classic portrait of Jesus in red.