"...they all loved it and felt the spirit and prayed together after it."

First time emailing in 2014!

Well, it was a good start to the year so far. Yesterday we went to Paisley and played some New Year's Day football, a tradition in the stake. We went down with the Cox family, the same ones who I Skyped from.
Unfortunately we were playing on a wet, muddy pitch, and I didn't have any cleats to wear, so I was slipping and sliding all around in my running shoes. It was fun though! Might consider getting myself a pair of boots if we end up playing regularly.

Then we went to the house of our super-friendly investigator and watched a couple movies, because A) No members invited us over ... and B) He didn't have anyone to spend the day with so it was a win win! 

We watched DARBY O'GILL AND THE LITTLE PEOPLE! It was pretty funny. Now that I'm out here, it's easier to distinguish which of the actors have legitimate Irish accents and which ones are super fake. Good classic film. 

Then we watched Shrek The Third and Shrek Forever After, sort of a Shrek movie marathon. I thought they were both brilliant! 

Which is odd because I remember seeing Shrek 3 and thinking it was rubbish a few years ago, but maybe all movies seem really good because we aren't allowed to watch them ever out here. So far, it's a good 2014.

Other cool wee stories: 

We went to visit this one guy we met a couple weeks ago. When we first taught him he was drunk as a skunk, and the lesson wasn't that spiritual or promising. So we kind of had him at the back of our mind, but then we thought we should go visit him again and see how he was doing. 

Turns out, he had watched the Joy To The World DVD we left with him...multiple times, and he invited friends over to watch it with him, and they all loved it and felt the spirit and prayed together after it. 

So although they were all likely drunk at the time they watched it, they were still quite receptive. So we talked with him a bit, set up a time to come back the next day, and when we did his two friends were there. 

They were all drunk, with bottles of vodka and "cider" sitting on the floor, so at times they were yelling at each other to shut up but other times they were listening intently to what we had to say. Interesting, and yet spiritual experience. Drunks are always interesting.

We went to Wemyss Bay the other day (which looks like it would be BEAUTIFUL in the summer time) to try to contact an AUF. 

While tracting near his house, we knocked on this door where as soon as the lady answered she called for her husband and said, "I think you have some visitors!" Then he came to the door and warmly greeted us, said it's been a long time since he's seen any of us. 

We were wondering at first if it was another long lost member, or what, but turns out he's a Jehovah's Witness who used to have discussions with missionaries quite often. He says he has a copy of the Book of Mormon AND The Pearl of Great Price, and he reads them every so often. 

Which says a lot, because every other Jehovah's Witness we've met has accused the Church of being wrong for having additional scriptures. But apparently he's a bit more receptive. We didn't get much time to talk, but we're seeing him again this weekend. Should be fun.

Let's see...other stuff to tell you...Oh yeah so New Year's eve we were MEANT to be in bed at 10:30 as usual. Our plan was to be IN BED at that time, but stay up until midnight watching Animated Book of Mormon stories that Elder Smiler has on our wee dvd player. 

However the fun kept us up a bit late...and when I finally laid down in my bed I was totally knackered. We were laying down just talking for a while, then I started to drift off around 11:55, then woke up at 12:01. So I wasn't even conscious for the New Year! Oh well. That's missionary life for ya. Tired all the time.

No updates on Traci and her family, they have all been sick lately so we haven't had a chance to visit them and they weren't at church. 

So there ya go, that's my week for you all. Next email will be quite short; we will be back to Monday emails as far as I know, so only like four days until I email again. Have a good four days!

Love, Spencer

Photos:

Too many Christmas gifts to hold at once, so here are some select ones! Thanks again!

My very first district...REUNITED! 

L to R: Elder Neilsen the DL, Elder Maughan, Me, Elder Holm, Elder South. 

Only one missing is Elder Kelly and he is away home now. And the Chamberlains as well, also home. 

But it was great to see them all! (Elder Maughan is in my district now, and the other three were in the Missionary Christmas Choir a couple weeks ago.)

"He laid down his sweet head, so he did!"

Friday, December 27, 2013
Well, Skyping was great with you all the other day. Time sure flew by! It was a great time. I feel like we could have talked for hours and hours! I guess we'll have to save it for Mum's Day.
Christmas was nice. We had a nice meal with the Cox family, we watched a bit of Despicable Me 2 and Toy Story 3 at the members' homes we visited that day, and then yesterday we watched Monsters University!
It was really good. Moral of the story: College is pointless; just quit and go work in the mailroom and you'll end up at the top! Just kidding. It was really good.
I think the Scottish couple we watched it with was probably really confused about the whole fraternity/sorority thing because I don't think they have that here. Remind me to never "go greek" when I get back to USU so I don't end up like those monsters.
Well the past week and a half have been really good. Lots and lots of travel.
We went to Glasgow for our district meetings last Tuesday and this past Monday, so we could practice our Christmas carol singing with both Glasgow and Paisley zones for our Christmas Eve performance.
It went really well; we sang in the middle of this posh indoor shopping mall. People were gathered around just listening to us for the whole two hours. It was awesome!
I have grown to love learning to sing actual choir parts. I'm a tenor, I discovered. Sometimes my voice is strained or cracks when I try to hit some of the higher notes, but I noticed myself getting a lot better even in these past two weeks of practice.
The highlight of the weeks: The Missionary Christmas Concert in Paisley last Wednesday. (Different from the previously mentioned one.)
This was a group of uber-talented singers from our mission who traveled around that whole week to each of the five stakes in Scotland and performed. It was amazing.
There were some really powerful performances. A few men's ensembles, a few a cappella duets, some piano and violin performances. Overall I just left feeling amazing, feeling like I was on a spiritual high. Music is amazing. Also Elder Holm was there as part of the choir and I got to talk to him for the first time since a Dublin conference over six months ago! It was nice.
Funny Ollie story (Traci's three year old son) we were with them on Christmas Eve talking about the nativity, and asking what they knew about the birth of Jesus. He said, "He laid down his sweet head, so he did!" It was adorable.
And I was sitting next to him on the couch as we watched a Christmas movie, and he offered me some of his blanket, "Elder, do you need some covers?" So cute and funny.
Well I forgot to bring my camera with me so I can't send photos of the Christmas festivities. But I will on Thursday. (Unfortunately no email this Monday again for some reason...) We have less email time today because we Skyped for an hour the other day. I loved talking with you all, it was great! Just wish it coulda been more time! Thanks so much for the gifts as well. I have enjoyed them thus far. Unwrapping each wee thing was so exciting to discover what surprises lay on the other side of the paper. And Skype was even better.
Hope you all had a great Christmas and have a happy New Year!!!
Love,
Spencer

"...it is a good thing to have a balance of those two things."

Crazy! Christmas is pretty much a week away!!! 

Skype: The members who invited us over said 5:00pm would be best for Skyping...but they could probably compromise for 7pm, since we have to be back at our flat by 9, and Skype sessions always go a bit over the expected time. (Which is good.) 

So I'll check with them and see. Hopefully they reply to my text within this email session. If not, I'll maybe jump on the computer during our lunch break to make sure we're all on the same page. Yeah, disobedient technically, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Anyway, this week has been pretty good. Elder Smiler is a really cool New Zealander/Polynesian. We get on pretty good so far. He keeps telling me he loves me because his last companion was super intense and angry sometimes. So it's nice to be appreciated for my relative laid back attitude.

Our host family just texted and said that 5 would be ideal for them because they go to visit their family after that...however maybe we can go to another family's house after their's and make it work? For now: let's plan on 5:00 Skype, but hopefully I'll get something worked out between now and then.

Elder Smiler likes to be stylish; clothing and also the way the flat is arranged. So the past few days he has repositioned furniture, reorganized stuff, etc. 

It looks nice. But I just can't be bothered either way. As long as it's warm inside, there's a bed, and enough food to survive, I'm good.

Well last week was a lot of me sitting around while Elder Pallin packed, which was fun! Not really, but kinda necessary. 

Monday night we went to Traci's for dinner. Every time we visit they tell us how thankful they are for what we have done, apparently we made a big change on the whole family! But it wasn't us, it was the spirit! 

I think I always feel like I don't teach the gospel very well, but then moments like that make me feel like others have much more confidence in me than I do. 

Like yesterday, the branch president came out teaching with us, and he told us we were fantastic teachers, whereas I always like when members contribute to the lesson because I feel like they put it in a more simple, understandable and relateable way than I can. But it's ok, because as we have seen thus far it's the holy ghost that converts the people, not our words.

A TON of travel this week! We went to Dunoon on Thursday, where our branch mission leader lives.

It was an interesting day; weekly planning, which takes about three hours. Then a lunch break. Then we had to get a bus from Greenock to Gourock, where the ferry port is. 

We missed the one we meant to get, because the driver didn't see us waiting for it and he just drove by. So we waited 30 minutes, in this time we had a nice chat with a friendly old lady going to the same place. 

The next bus never came, and the lady said she'd just get a taxi to the ferry terminal, and offered to let us go with her for free. 

So we got to the ferry on time, but only on time to get to the member's house for dinner. 

Then we had a brief coordination meeting, and by the time we got back it was like 8:30! So yeah, lots of travel, and waiting for buses and ferries. 

Then the next day we went to Millport, which was basically the same. 

Have to get a bus to Largs, then a ferry to the Isle of Cumbrae, where brother Gibson usually picks us up and takes us into the actual town of Millport. 

Dunoon, Cumbrae, and the ferry journeys are beautiful, but sometimes it's dark when we're traveling so we miss out on a bit. Apparently the summer there is AMAZING though; they say that Largs and Millport are the tourist hot spots in the summer for loads of Glaswegians. (People from Glasgow.)

ON FRIDAY I BURNED A SHIRT AND A TIE! Don't worry; they were ones that elders had left in the flat, the shirt doesn't fit me or Elder Smiler, and the tie was old and stained. So I didn't feel bad for wasting clothing. 

Man, it ignited so fast it was scary. Photos attached. Luckily it had rained earlier that morning so we didn't have to worry about setting a wildfire.

On Saturday we went and taught Kenny, Traci's husband. He's real solid. Wants to get baptised, just not sure when yet though. And have I told you that their wee boy Mark wants to go on a mission when he's 18? 

Such a solid family. Still amazes me that it all came from just knocking a certain door, right time right place.

Hmmm well I think that's it for this week. It was a nice week, as will this upcoming one. 

Still trying to find a balance between being a chill, laid-back missionary, and a super serious strict spiritual one. I hope to find that balance someday, whether here or after the mish, it is a good thing to have a balance of those two things.

Love you all! Thanks for everything. TTYL!

Love,

Elder Spencer Burt

Photos:
Beautiful sunset on the bus to Largs

Before

After (Again, don't worry, the grass was soaking wet. And we had a two litre jug of water just in case, because we are responsible!)

"By small and simple things, great things truly do come to pass!"

Hey the news is in and I will be staying another transfer, and Elder Pallin is moving to Dublin.
My new comp is Elder Smiler from New Zealand.
Crazy, I've had so many foreign companions! Let's review them all:
Elder Hunt (England)
Elder Holm (Nevada)
Elder Gomez-Castillo (Spain)
Elder Meyer (Australia)
Elder Winn (Utah)
Elder Pallin (Canada)
Elder Smiler (New Zealand)
So I've only served with one fellow Utahan, and only two Americans! Pretty crazy.
I'm excited. I've met Elder Smiler before, he seems really fun and has a goofy side I think. So we'll have some fun and also work hard and be spiritual.
So this week was real good. We have met quite a lot of new folks that are kind of interested in learning more through members.
Not the typical "referral" they encourage us to ask for, where they tell us who of their friends are interested and we go and seek them out.
No, these are people that have been inside members' houses when we go visit, and they end up sitting in on the lesson and we tailor it to them rather than the member we planned on teaching. This happened on three instances this week.
Each time they seemed really interested and they accepted the invitation for us to come around to their house or else meet up at the member's house again to teach them more. It is really cool, just investigators coming out of the woodwork so to speak.
Also, Traci's husband Kenny is solid! We visited them on Saturday night, answered any questions he had about the church or the baptism, and then taught him about the Restoration and Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, and he was real excited. Said he was open to the idea of baptism someday.
So yeah, their whole flippin' family will probably join the church and it will be such a great miracle! Just because we were tracting in the right place at the right time that day. By small and simple things, great things truly do come to pass!
Also, their son Mark who is seven years old apparently talks to Traci about how he wants to go on a mission to America when he is 18!
It just blows my mind how much of one missionary can affect countless lives. So rewarding!
One day last week we went to Dunoon. It's part of our branch, but we have to take a bus and then a ferry to get there. But it is beautiful! I'll try to attach a photo.
We went with the intention of trying to contact some less-active members and also some AUF's, and do some tracting in between.
But not much success. Except one older couple; we realized that the man's birthday was the very day we were going, and the Paisley stake has encouraged us to give out these birthday cards with Jesus on it, wishing them a happy birthday and encouraging them to come to church.
We heard through the grapevine that our surprise visit had a massive effect, and they are both planning to return to church!
We had a zone meeting this week. Good fun.
During it we practiced singing Christmas songs for an upcoming performance. Every year all the Paisley and Glasgow zone missionaries go to a mall in Glasgow and sing carols to raise money for some charity. And apparently we always make loads of money for them, so they like having us do it. It will be fun!
It's weird that Christmas is coming; there's no snow on the ground. Well it did snow a few days, but just flurries accompanied by freezing, strong winds, and none of it sticks to the ground so far. So not a "winter wonderland" just yet but maybe it will get snowy closer to the big day.
I went on an exchange with Elder Davis, we had a good time. Exchanges are always fun, even when you get along good enough with your companion it's nice to have a change. And also to learn from our leaders.
Well, that's it for this week.

HEY! IMPORTANT! When do you all want to Skype? There is a member family that wants us over for Christmas day and they said anytime that suits yous. So what time would be most convenient? Let me know ASAP so I can make sure it's fine with the family and then let you know in advance if it's ok. Deal? Deal. I'm very excited to talk to you all!
Love yous lots! Happy Holidays!
Spencer

Photos:
The Paisley Zone...missing a couple people because they were trying to work out the self-timers on THEIR cameras. But oh well.

Amazing sunrise in Paisley!

"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