"We were just in the right place at the right time...and the spirit did all the convincing."

Wow, What a weekend!
Traci was baptised. And confirmed.
Her mum, dad, husband (he works in England during the week and comes back up on weekends), and two sons were there, and so was a good number of members from the ward. It was a great experience. Elder Pallin baptised her, and I confirmed her the next day.
Traci's husband said he wants to come to church again next week, and he said it's just a positive environment that is rare to find these days. So we're looking forward to getting to know him better; Friday evening was the first time we met him. Such a solid family! And her seven year old son wants to get baptised in May. Just so golden! And Traci bought us each a bag of sweets and included personal letters, very grateful and so nice and such.
It feels weird to me; we spend SO much time teaching someone, worrying about them, praying for them, studying for lessons we will teach them, and overall preparing them for this one big day...and it's super exciting, but all of a sudden it just happens, and it feels kinda weird!
I felt the same way with Jimmy. Very grateful to be part of their conversion and to witness their baptisms, but for some reason I just feel like, what? That's it? It's over? Of course, it's not over for them or for us. And of course I'm super excited at the baptism and extremely happy for each person. Overall it was a fantastic weekend!
Elder Dustin, who is a Paisley zone leader, interviewed Traci for baptism and he was just amazed at how prepared she was. As were we the whole time, I still can't believe it's only been less than a month and she is so dedicated and such a strong testimony.
And the great thing is, we didn't do anything special. We were just in the right place at the right time when we found her, had solid members with us when teaching her, and the spirit did all the convincing. In fact sometimes I felt like our lessons were rubbish quality, but she felt the spirit and understood what we tried to teach and knew it was true. So yeah, it's just magic isn't it!
Speaking of which, I shared what I thought was some really good insight/counsel at my district meeting this week.
There's a segment in The District DVD's where this young, inexperienced elder who doesn't seem too confident, makes a comment in a lesson...whenever we watch it it's just painful.
He basically says, "Yeah, a lot of people tell us, 'Well Jesus drank wine!' and we say, well, no...it was grape juice..." and then the investigator goes off on a tangent about how it really WAS wine because "grape juice wouldn't hold" and then after the segment the elder is telling how much of a disaster that one comment was, but then he says "As missionaries we make mistakes. But it's ok to make those mistakes sometimes because the spirit is there, and if the spirit is there then a good feeling is there."
And later in the video it shows the baptism of the whole family, and the spirit is always so strong when watching it.
So yeah at district meeting I showed those two segments and re-emphasized the message, that we are not perfect missionaries and we don't have to be; sometimes we will make mistakes but if we have the spirit with us then everything will be ok.
And most of the missionaries in our district then shared experiences when they had made silly mistakes in lessons and it worked out just fine in the end, because the Spirit does the actual converting, not us.
A lot of our time this week was spent teaching Traci and preparing HER, but also spent at the church preparing the other stuff.
Such as figuring out how the font filling system worked, making sure the hot water worked, cleaning the font because it hasn't been used in about a year, and cleaning a lot of the building because with such few members it's hard to clean that whole thing regularly.
In the end, it was a great experience for all who were present, and we managed to get a lot of missionary work done in the midst of it all.
Well other than that, there is not much else that happened this week. Usual, visiting less-active members, teaching other investigators who are much slower going than Traci, walking, riding buses, knocking on doors, talking to people on the street, etc.
Oh wait! A cool experience!
Whilst waiting for a bus one day, the bus stop was suddenly mobbed with little school kids and their parents taking them home.
One little four or five year old boy came up to me and just kinda started talking. Random stuff at first. Then he asked me "What's that book?" that I was holding in my hand.
I immediately turned to the pictures at the front of the book, the ones of Jesus, Joseph Smith, Nephi, Lehi, Samuel the Lamanite, etc. I showed him each one and he was amazed.
Especially when I showed him Samuel on the wall being shot at with arrows, and I told him the story about how they couldn't hit him because God was on his side. He wanted to read the story about that, so I put a bookmark in the chapter where that is, and asked him mom if it was ok to give him the book, since she was standing a few feet away talking to someone else.
Then we got on the same bus as them and he was looking at the pictures the whole time. So great!
That's my youngest Book of Mormon placement so far. Then it gets even better.
We were walking around looking for the house of a less-active member we wanted to visit. Suddenly Elder Pallin says, hey, we should knock on that door.
We did, and a friendly old man came to the door. He said he was fine with being Catholic, but we could come by another time to have a little chat.
When we left, Elder Pallin said that on the old man's wall was a photo of the little kid who I gave a Book of Mormon to! So now we have a connection on how to get in contact with the family, and we took it as a sign that they are perhaps ready to hear the gospel. It was awesome!
I feel like little kids are always happy to see us when walking around, tracting, or on the bus, but then their parents are like "No." All angry and stubborn and grumpy. Sort of rings true to that scripture where Jesus says we must be as little children, submissive, meek, humble, etc. I wish the parents were always as innocent and receptive as their kids!
Anyway, that was my week. Hope this one is full of magic and surprises for all of us, wherever we may be.
Love,
Elder Burt

Photos:
Traci's baptism

Nov 25

"I invited Traci to be baptised, she eagerly accepted!"

Dear family and friends, but mostly just family,

This week was quite interesting so it was! 

Fun fact: down here the Scottish people say "So it is" just like the N. Irish do, but in Dundee the only time I heard that phrase was when a Northern Irish guy was talking. So I guess the closer you get to Ireland the more you talk like them? Makes sense I guess.

Last Monday was super fun. We went to Paisley to have some fun n games with practically the whole zone. 

We planned on playing inside the church gym because it is usually rotten weather, but it wasn't too bad so we went to a nearby football pitch. 

However the field was still wet and muddy from the night before, so we played some mud-ultimate-frisbee! It was great. I think I hurt my tailbone from slipping and falling so much. Worth it though!

Then on Tuesday, we had a zone conference. Not sure if this was aimed at just our zone or if he did the same for all, but the first bit of instruction he gave was on p-day. He said that the P stands for Preparation, not Play. 

Yes, it's ok to have some fun when we have a bit of spare time that day, but the priority is to do those things we need to do so we can focus on the work the rest of the week, such as cleaning, shopping, relaxing, writing letters, etc. 

He said it was not good to ignore some of the more important tasks so we can have as much play time as possible. Also we need to stay in our area on p-day and not gather with big groups of missionaries. So basically, everything we did the day before, he said was inappropriate and shouldn't happen anymore. 

I think he said the same for the whole mission though because it's a widespread thing for missionaries to get together and do stuff. 

Elder Pallin was real bummed about it, because he was the one spearheading the whole thing on Monday, but I think it's nice that we will finally just relax on p-days, I think that will help us all de-stress more.

So remember the guy called Richard that we met last week? Well we taught him again on Monday, stopped by his house on Wednesday while we were in the area, and taught him again on Friday. 

The first two visits, we talked about baptism. The first time we brought it up he said "I'm an Aquarius, so I'm up for anything to do with water." Interesting guy. 

But the next visit he asked what he would have to do to be baptised, and he said he was seriously considering it. But then on Friday, he told us that his deep Catholic mother had threatened to disown him if he joined the church, even though he is 40 and lives on his own. 

He said he'd rather choose his mom over the church, which to me makes sense so I didn't argue with that. But we suggested that he took the next seven days for serious prayer and scripture study and hopefully God will help to soften his mom's heart. 

Also we told him that using tarot cards is a subtle way of inviting Satan into his life, so he agreed to stop using them and only communicate with God through prayer. So we'll see how that goes! We had/still have really high hopes for him.

Traci is doing Brilliant!!! 

On Wednesday we had two men from the ward volunteer to go out teaching with us, so myself and Prince Obike (from Nigeria) went to teach Traci and Elder Pallin and brother Gibson went and visited less actives/home teaching. 

I invited Traci to be baptised, she eagerly accepted! We told her that the soonest possible day would be the 30 of November, and she said she would love to be baptised that day! 

So it's less than two weeks away!!! Excited and nervous. But she is loving it. 

At church her mom was asking us if we thought it was too rushed, we said that it's up to Traci, and Traci said "it's just like...when you know it's true, you just KNOW." So that was good to hear! 

She always tells us that she feels like this has been what she's been searching for for a long time, and she hasn't felt like she belonged in a church until she met us. Awesome! 

She's a lot like Gertie, but a bit quieter, and her family is supportive so there shouldn't be any problem with that.

We did a bit of work in Largs again this week. Pretty cool town, I want to go there on a P-day sometime just to walk around and go in the shops and take pictures and what not.

We also went to Port Glasgow a couple times. We had an "AUF" (address unknown file, I think I've talked about these before) that we had to go try and contact. 

He lived on Robert Street, which was the dodgiest neighborhood I have ever been to! 

We knocked some doors near this man's house, and one guy who looked a bit scary himself told us to watch ourselves, "This is a bad area and there are a lot of alcoholics and heroin addicts here." 

We had the feeling too; there were broken windows everywhere and some doors were broken off the hinges and there was just junk inside the flats. Luckily it was daytime; if it was dark we would have just turned around and run, it was that dodgy.

We work with a lot of less-active people here, which I've mentioned before. Many of them have mental health problems of some sort, or addictions. So we have some interesting conversations. 

One man we were talking to was absolutely wasted, and he said "You know that big huge church in Utah City? Well I can go inside there because I'm baptized." It was pretty funny. 

Then another guy who is old and a bit slow, but SUPER nice and friendly...he has a huge flag collection! 

Mom, you would like it. There is literally no space on the wall; just flags. Many duplicate Scottish flags, the blue and white flag (I think it's called St. Andrew's Cross) and the yellow one with a red lion on it. In some places there are flags covering other flags because there just isn't enough room. 

While we tried to share a message with him, sometimes he'd randomly point to a flag and say "That one there is Jordan" and other ones that he was excited to tell us about. Next time we're there I'll try and get a picture or two!

Well that was a pretty long email and my hands are kinda sore from typing so fast. So I'll go now. Take care everybody! Have fun!

Oh, one more thing: President Brown has authorized an additional book for our study in addition to the scriptures, PMG, and other official church stuff..."The Power of everyday Missionaries" by Clayton Christensen. 

The zone leaders have it, and it is GENIUS! 

I urge you all to read it. Also, if possible, I would like one. The one chapter I read was just brilliant, with loads of helpful hints on how to invite our friends, and even non-friends, to hear the gospel in polite, effective, logical and practical ways.

Love yous all! Happy Thanksgiving! (Soon, right? We don't do that here...)

Love,

Elder Burt 

 

Photos: 

Upside down printed Book of Mormon! What a find!

Elder Pallin

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