September 14th, 2016

      This week has been pretty uneventful. I got sick on Friday with a bit of a head cold so that put me out that day and I'm just now recovering. The weather has been changing a lot and it's getting very rainy and cold again. Winter is not a happy time here in England. By next month it will start getting dark at 4 and raining loads. But that's why Christmas is in the winter so it can warm everyone's hearts haha

      Me and Tokoragi are doing good and it's been interesting to work with him. He is quite different than most Polynesians for a few different reasons one in particular he doesn't like fish... Yeah that was a bit of a shock haha but we have had some good laughs. One really funny thing that happened this week was when we were out proselyting and saw an old lady cutting some very overgrown brier bushes. As missionaries do, we asked if we could help her and she surprisingly let us (most people don't like getting help). So we finished cutting and putting the briers cuttings into bags. When mostly everything was cleaned up in the bags I looked around the perimeter of the garden to find any stray pieces and I saw what looked like an old dead tree branch that wasn't a brier so I picked it up and then it in the bag. When I picked it up felt a tug of the root snapping and when I did tug Mavis, the old lady, very dramatically shouted, "oh no!" She then said that this bush was 50 years old and she had had it most of her life. I tried to apologize but the damage was done and we very quickly finished and left. She was not happy. We are still laughing at her reaction of the death of her dead bush haha       

        The work has been alright but we are going to have to clean out our teaching pool a little bit as people aren't progressing but that's mission life. We got flogged by Marie when we were going to teach her and Alex and Hannah are sticking to their beliefs and didn't read the Book of Mormon.

        We also have to worry about grown up things as the mission is dissolving all 4 man flats. The mission office told us to buy a flat so this week we have started the process of finding flats and setting appointments to view flats. It's not my favourite, but must be done. 

        A great lesson I was reminded of is the spirit is the key to missionary work and a successful life. As soon as we start to rely on ourselves we instantly let pride in our hearts and lose the Spirit. When we have the attitude of' "I know I can do all things through you" that's when we have the spirit and are successful.