February 1st, 2017

I'm sorry that this email is going to be so short but I am currently in the Epsom hospital A&E with Elder Dey. So back story. There is this place in our area called box hill and it has a fun hike on it and it was raining so we thought it would be fun to go muddy hiking. Well we were just at the end and Elder Dey was in front and there was a little downhill part right before an uphill part so as he was hopping down the hill he slipped and fell. Naturally I laughed really hard and then he stayed on the ground. He then sat down and said that something was wrong and he has a bad cut. Turns out he fell right where there was a broken bottle and he sliced open his knee pretty bad. So we are waiting and have no clue what's wrong but hopefully by the end of this email we will have it figured out.

He is okay! He just had to get 8 stitches..... Here is my weekly update

Elder Dey and I are doing great and loving our companionship. We were able to run a zone training together with the sister training leaders that went from 10am to 8:30pm. Yeah it was killer but quite fun and Elder Day and I were able to come up with a lot of fun ideas. It was a zone interview day with the President and we had one district come in at a time and while president was interviewing one companionship we would be running a 30 minutes workshop. When the companionship being interviewed was done they came and joined the workshop and one companionship left. We had 3 workshops and just keep running through them all day. I was so tired by the end of it and then we had our interviews which were great and then me, Elder Dey, and the STLs had dinner with president and went through a leadership training with him. I loved all the practical teaching applications he gave us. I also loved being able to work with the zone. There is so much diversity in our zone as well. Out of the 22 there are only 4 Americans. It's makes it quite funny and everyone knows that they can be themselves so we laugh a lot. 

Most of the new investigators we have gotten in the past few weeks have dropped us. We are still working with Paul but he is going to be a slow going journey. He comes to church every week and most people think he's a member but he just doesn't see the need to be baptized yet. Hanifa is doing well although we weren't able to see her this last week but we are seeing her Saturday. We are excited to use some of the new tools that President Gubler has taught us yesterday to find and retain new people though.

The new schedule is so nice. It makes the evenings so much more relaxed and focused on accounting with the Lord at night and it's gives me plenty of time to write in my journal. I also like mornings better. Elder Dey and I go to the chapel and play ping pong every morning. All in all it just gives us a lot more freedom and I love that.

The weather here has been rain rain and more rain. To be honest though I don't even notice that it's a rainy day anymore. The rain doesn't change anything people do in England so it doesn't change anything we do haha it think it's rained more days then it has not rained on my mission. 

I've loved being able to work with all of them so closely and it has helped me to learn how different people are and how every one needs to be ministered to differently. People give and receive messages of love, encouragement, correction, and appreciation so differently. I have been working on identifying how people give and receive those messages and then trying to do the best I can to adapt myself to the person to show them that I care about them and want to help them. For some people it's pure listening. Some it's talking a lot. Some like opinions and some don't. Some people like to receive written cards or cookies haha. And some people don't care what it is as long as you're just with them. It's cool because the more I've been learning about how to treat other people the more I've learned about myself and what I like and don't like. That cliche saying "you learn something new everyday" is my life at the moment. All the the way from learning cool doctrine to learning how to talk to someone. I love it.