Sam the Man: July 26th, 2016

This week was great! We taught Vicky who is now a progressing investigator. She used to be a former but we found her and started teaching her again. She is Filipino and has been living in England for a while. We taught her the restoration and Elder Pongbundit did a great job! The gift of tongues is real. He spoke better English in that lesson than ever before.

We also played touch rugby with some Fijians and it was crazy! So the other missionaries in our area are teaching one of them and they invited them out to play. They wanted as many people as possible so they invited us. It is such a fun sport, but it has a complete and totally different mindset from football so that was different, but I loved it and we are going to make it a weekly thing.

Then we had zone conference where 3 zones come together. That was really good. I really like the mission president. He is an inspired man and is definitely helping the mission stay on the right track. They asked everyone in the mission to prepare a 5 min talk beforehand and when we get there they randomly (guided by the Spirit) choose a few missionaries to speak. I always prepare the sickest talks but never get called on but this time they called on me. I actually didn't prepare this time but used a talk I prepared 3 months ago and had in my notes haha the topic was how Preach My Gospel helps us know our purpose or something like that. I used a movie scene I remembered my football coach a long time ago showed us from the movie 300 about the Spartans. I described over the pulpit to 70 or so missionaries and the mission president the part where Leonidas is with his 300 men and is talking to an army of 10,000 and their leader. Leonidas asks one of the soldiers, "what is your profession?" The man answered a farmer. He then asked another soldier the same question and got a similar response. He then turns around and asks his army, "Spartans! WHAT IS YOUR PROFESSION?" And they respond, "OWU, OWU, OWU!" So I very dramatically acted out this scene, shouting that last bit, then tied it into the point of how we have power when we know our purpose and know what we are here to do. It was the best talk I had ever given and everyone (except president Goobler) was laughing hahaha it was so fun!

The rest of the week was pretty chill. The ward is great and they feed us a lot. We have like 3-4 DAs (dinner appointments) a week. It's great to get to know the members and I love learning from them. People have such cool life stories. The only problem with so many DAs is it makes me chunky.... Morning exercise isn't enough to combat the powerful effect of pudding. Especially when they make eton mess which is my favourite English pudding. It's whipped egg whites with sugar (can't spell that word), thick whipped cream, and chopped strawberries and raspberries!! Loving the area of Plymouth and we see miracles daily! Elder Pongbundit is an amazing guy and I love him!!

Love, Elder Johnson