Hi All,
As with many things this season of the year seems to get away from us it certainly has for me. Tonight I am making up for my neglect of Michael's blog. I decide to just put a few highlight from the last month so you can catch up on what he has been doing.
Nov. 14th 2011
Chao Li was baptized!!! Man that kid is a stud. I will send ya some pics soon. The baptism started late cuz we were waiting for Chao his friends to come. I asked him "so how many friends did you invite?" and he says "oh like three or four." anyway we are outside the church waiting for them and then up pull two car fulls of Chinese!!!! 12 of them I think! We had more Chinese then church members there! It was a very spiritual baptism. I don’t know if I told you about his past. Chao's dad passed away about 8 years ago when he was 16. He is very sensitive to the topic but he loved the Plan of Salvation. So it was so cool to teach him the Plan of Salvation and he was so excited to be able to see his father again in the next life. At his baptism he had a very spiritual experience concerning his father. It was very neat to hear that. How true this gospel is and how amazing God’s love is. It was a very neat baptism. One that was right up there with Young’s. After the baptism we had the APs spend the night at our flat that night so they were down for the baptism. It was fun being with White bread again. I love that kid. After the baptism we had to celebrate we all went to KFC Elder Whitehead said it was my year mark gift for me
As far as the work is going it is all going well. Our zone is struggling a bit. I just don’t know what to do with missionaries that don’t want to be obedient or hard working? Any advice? We can only do so many exchanges too cuz our zone is so dang big! We don’t have any dates but that will soon change. Just give it time. Elder Simmons is a machine and really a hard worker. Our goal is to have a confirmation for Christmas. So we are working for that! Our goal is to have a family baptized by then. We feel God has one out there for us to teach. So please pray they or us will be led to each other.
Nate/Beka I am so sorry about the loss of your mother, you are in my prayers Young, I am sure that the President will let me give ya a ring before you leave. I would be shocked if he didn’t. I will call him today and ask. But I am sure it will be fine.
Nov. 21, 2011
I hope all is going well back in the good old land of Utah! This week has been a week from @##!!# work wise. I think we did bazillion hours of finding! I thought it was all in vain but God did reward us :) not greatly but hey it all starts with the one eh? We got one new investigator. He is a university student and really isn’t that interested but just open minded (ha that is how they all start ) So we only met with him for like twenty minutes. But it was a tender mercy that is for sure.
This week though we did have a fun thing on at the church. There were two fund raisers that our church did. The first one was called "children in need" and that was good. The mascot for it is a bear called pudsy. He is some yellow bear with a spotted patch over his eye (kinda creepy) but they had elder Simmons and I in the pudsy costume and that was a lot of fun. I felt like a Disney land guy. It was funny. There were also a lot of people there! The only thing was we couldn’t really proselyte. We did however run into a bunch of families that we had knocked on their doors two weeks ago. That was funny and they ran away from us when they saw us.
We also had this band concert night at the church where the Plymouth city band played for charity. It was good. We were able to talk to a lot of non members. I think there were about 110 non members there. A few of them wanted to know more about the church. It was good so we were able to give them a chapel tour and teach them. We did that for about fifteen people. We were not able to ask for their info though but we left them with our number and they said they would like to come to the services sometime. So who knows eh? But that was good. Being perfectly blunt I think this week was just a lame week. Just nothing tons happened which is sad. I guess that means God will send some blessings soon eh?
Nov 28 2011
We just gained a new baptismal commitment. His name is Lin. He is from China. I have no idea where. He is a good kid and Chao is helping us teach him. His date is for Dec 31. Chao is doing great. He bought a brand new suit on Friday just for the p-hood and he loves church. He is so excited to go to the temple and be baptized for his dad. All of the RCs here in Plymouth doing well. All of them are active which is so good to see.
I can’t take too long because we have to drive up to Reading for a leadership conference today.
Thanks Giving here was really good. We had about three turkey dinners. One from an American. We also went to the Mayflower steps where the good ole pilgrims left. They had some ceremony there for it. I will never be in Plymouth again on Thanks Giving so it was kind of cool.
I took my driving test again without telling you............................
I PASSED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That was actually probably the highlight of my week! Not having to worry about anymore driving lessons and driving tests. I feel like chains that were bound around me are now cut and I can roam free in the meadow of..... well the meadow. So that was exciting. It was intense ok so I have to tell you all a quick story about it. We get to the test center 15 min early. And in England when you are learning to drive you have to have these huge magnetic "L" plates on your car. One on the back and one on the front they stand for "learner". I get there and one of the instructors tells me excuse me one of your L plates is missing. I look at the car and I see that one of them (the rear one) had fallen off!!! Thus making it so I can’t take my test. I look at Simmons and he says "they don’t call me the speed demon for nothing" we get in the car and the nearest place to get them is 15 min away!!! If I am late then I lose all of my money. Literally even one min late! We get in the car and yeah anyway I run in get the L plate pay for it and run back. We get there right as the examiners are coming out of the door for the tests! If I would have been a minute later I would have failed. That got my adrenaline pumping and so for my whole test I was dying. To make it even worse they brought the main dude of the test center on my test to make sure my examiner was doing a good job I guess... it was freaky. The test dudes here don’t talk. It is like you try and talk to them and they say things like "grunt" or "no" or nothing, they are so quiet. But, I passed!!!!!!
Dec 5th 2011
We now have three baptismal dates. The first is Sashka. She is the sister of Rebekah one of my RCs when I first came to Plymouth. Her parents wouldn’t let her be baptized but they have given permission. We went there about five days ago and I just thought ok we are not leaving this house until she has a date. And so we did. She is preping for the 16th of Dec. Just pray that her parents hearts will stay soften. She has come to church a ton and has had all of the lessons but the commandments. She is nine so there is not too much to worry about there. Please keep her in your prayers. She will need them and so will the parents. They are nice they just don’t understand baptism and what it is.
The next is--in the Chinese friend of Chao’s. He is funny. We have taught him all of the lessons but the commandments Chao is helping us and is a real help. I would have him baptize him but Ch--- is going back to China for the holidays. So we are going to try and encourage R---- (another RC when I first got here) to baptize him. Lin only concerns are just getting cold feet.
Then we have Martin. Martin is the son of a less active we have been working with. He is 27 years old and is a slow learner. Nice guy and coming along well. His mum used to be really active. She is coming back with Martin. In the past when missionaries have gone round M---- would hide but he didn’t hide for Elder Simmons and I. His date is in Jan due to him learning slower.
I talked to the Elders in London yesterday and this man who I ran into at the Slough bus station named "Wayne" who was wearing the man u hat just got the Mel p-hood and baptized his best friend. So that was neat to hear. I never would have thought that would have happened after talking to him at the bus station. Crazy how that works eh? Then all of the RCs here are doing well in Plymouth. Russel also got a calling as a ward m missionary. So good for him. I am excited to work with them all. God truly has blessed me to see the fruits of my labors and see as many baptisms as I have and for a good chunk of them remaining active! That makes me the most happy!
This wee we talked to 2 different men who slowly allowed the addiction of pornography mutate their lives. Both men had once been active members of the church. I will not go into any more detail but because of pornography one of the men has issues with every single issue you can think of in the LOC. Literally. We counseled him to speak to someone with that authority who can help with the healing process. I don’t know if he will. He knows the church is true. He has begun to read his b of M again. He prays again. But refuses to talk to anyone about it. I only hope and pray that he will. He is a good man with a good heart. I look at his life and he hates it. He tells us this every time we go there. His kids hate him. They don’t believe in God. One of them has put him into debt by thousands of pounds. His self confidence is shot. He has physical problems now as a result of his actions. Then this is what he told us “Elders you take a lesson from me. You take a lesson me and you never, NEVER! Do what I have done. You tell all that you can that this is not what happiness is. Satan makes things breaking the law of Chastity look fun and it may be, but only for a short while, then you have the consequences of it and I am still suffering from them." this man’s plea for us to not do as he had done. It really humbled me and once again the "flaxen cord" analogy came to my head.
With both of these men talked of the Atonement, We talked of healing and the power of hope and faith. I hope and pray that these men will take this into account.
Love you all
Elder White
