Three Day Challenge

How is everyone? I am great. I went on an exchange this past week with a missionary who is a new elder and who is going through new missionary homesickness. I hated that feeling. I didn’t get it until I left my trainer E.Whitehead. It can be a hard time for new missionaries. Then to add to his homesickness this elder says he didn’t feel like he had a testimony. Occasionally ya hear some elders say they are not sure if they have a testimony it makes me crazy cuz you hear it from investigators all of the time and the answers is still the same whether it is from a missionary or an investigator or a less active. They seem to expect some amazing glorious answer the first time they ask but they neglect the little signs and tender mercies the Lord has truly shown them. We see them every day and yet we become so used to it that we expect more from a God who can do anything. I looked at this elder as he and I talked about the "flecks of gold" that Elder Ballard spoke of a few conferences back or Pres Uchdorfs talk on "waiting on the road to Damascus" I asked him about all these things the church has brought into his life and how the gospel has brought him happiness and I said "would you have it any other way?" and he of course said no and so I asked "then why do you question your testimony?" And then he said "Elder White of course I know the church is true." and then he started to cry. I really felt for the guy he has not yet fully read the whole book of Mormon. Once again I gave him the three day challenge. I have done that with 3 other elders and it hasn’t failed yet! The first one I did it too I told you about and he is doing wonderful by the way! Anyway this young elder will pull through he is just going through the adjustments of being a missionary.

Love you all so much and may God ever bless you.

Love ya tons!
Elder M. White

The London Temple

Lots to tell you we had lots of little miracles. The past two weeks once again we have been doing a lot of exchanges. I got to go on a great exchange with Elder Snow (who I trained) in Bath. He is doing great!! I love that kid. The city of Bath is flipping beautiful city!!!!!!!!!!!!! Everything is the same brick everywhere you go and it is in the middle of the country side! I tried to see all that I could while I was there but there is so much to see in the city and not to mention I was there as a missionary and not a tourist. I really want to go back sometime and see the roman baths and ruins there. It is a really neat city. Mom I am sure you would love it.

Do you remember Wayne the one guy I met at the Slough bus station last year? Yeah? He was the less active man that went back to church and is fully active now. He baptized his good friend. This past week I got a call from him and he said "I just got my temple recommend and I would be honored if you came to with me for my first time to the temple.” I started shouting I was so happy. My companions, Elder Folkerson and Elder Whitehead, were with him when he went back to church. We got presidents permission and went to the London Temple on Sat and went through the endowment with him. It was really neat to see. That literally made my week. When I went into the celestial room he came up to me and gave me a big hug and said "Thank you so much for being at the right place and at the right time. You have no idea how much this has changed my life. You came and found me just at the right time. Thank you so much. Thank you and thank snowball (Elder Snow)." It is so wonderful going through the temple with someone you have helped bring into the church. That made my week and was by far the highlight.

Then Manoj who is our star date in Crawley is doing great. We are now teaching his family. He came to church and he loved it. In elders quorum they asked for people to come and help out with service and they asked for volunteers and Manoj was the first to raise his hand and it was his first time at church!!! It was sweet. We have been very blessed to find a great family.

Please pray for me as well as those who we teach and have been baptized, pray for missionary work. This is an amazing work. How wonderful it is to be engaged in the work of God. To see his mighty hand pushing forth throughout the world.

I Love you all so much!

Love,

Elder M. White

Exchanges

This was a good week, we did a lot of exchanges. We blitzed the whole west of the mission, well most of the west of the mission. We have been trying to work with future and potential leaders in the mission getting them ready for when so many of the missionaries go home. I went down to Plymouth, Elder Fulkerson went to Helston, and E Whitehead and President went all over Cornwall and Plymouth. They also went to St. Austell, Barnstaple, and Taunton. We hit a ton of areas in a few days. I also went on an exchange with the Staines zone leaders in London. I feel so tires physically it really takes it out of you but I love exchanges. We also had a good leadership training this past week that I really enjoyed.

We picked up another baptismal date this week!!!!!!!!! His name Manoj He is from India and he is really cool. R (Ugandan lady) is doing well, the only thing that she is facing is that her schedule is really busy and she doesn’t have tons of time to meet with us. We are getting some work done in our area but not tons and tons. Probably about 50% of work is done in our area and then the other half is in other areas. We are feeling good about the area. I am so happy to have some good people to teach and that have dates for baptism.

We have a date!!!

I feel that I am adjusting rather well to the life. This past week we went on many exchanges. I went on one up in London in an area called Welling which was really fun. I also am working on trying to get more exchanges with brand new missionary’s cuz in the next three months 52% of our mission will have gone home and we will have a whole new mission. This past week I went down to an area called Salisbury (this is where Stone Hedge is) and did an exchange there. In that part of England there are a lot of Polynesians. We had a good dinner appointment in a Tongan member’s home where we sat on mats and ate with our hands it was so good. It was a solid exchange and while there we went to a Cathedral which was huge!!! I love the old churches and castles in England that is one of my favorite parts about this country.

Today we picked up a baptismal date. We are the first APs in over a year to have a date! Her name is R. She is from Uganda and she is great! She understood authority well and is really organized. We are really excited to teach her more. We are really trying to get the work going in our aria.

As far as RC's I gave a few of them a call today and they are doing well. Tony in Peckham is doing great and I get to go to his baptism in a few weeks. Chao Li in Plymouth has brought four or five friends to church in the past two weeks and all of them have dates. He is a missionary machine.

Sorry, to be short this week. I am excited that we have a date and have a goal to baptize a family! Please pray for us.

Love you all!

Elder M. White

What a shock!!!

Wow, what a week. I have moved again and what a shocker. It all started last Monday. We got a call from the APs saying that they would like to do an exchange with E. Amundsen and I that day, but only for a few hours. I hung up the phone and all of the blood drained from my face cuz I could feel what they were thinking, I just knew. The APs took me to president’s house. They made up every lie in the book to try and make it look like we were just stopping there to get some stuff from his home. We went in and talk with Pres. and Sister Shamo for a bit and finally Pres Shamo said "Elder White follow me in here I want to talk to you for a few minutes.." so we walk into his office and he said "Elder White I am going to release you as a Zone Leader." and I said OK, and he said "I would like to call you to train." Now you remember how much I loved training and so my hopes got really high and I said "REALLY?!" and then he said teary eyed (Pres. Shamo cries like Pres. Eyring does) and he said "Yes the Lord would like to call you to train your mission president and your new mission president when he comes in July as their assistant." Once again the blood all drained from my face and I felt numb. You know the feeling. I managed to get out a yes and here I am. I don’t know how long I will be an AP I guess however long God needs me. I have a good chance of finishing my mission here. I just don’t know.

I am glad that we have an area to work in. In fact I have only been in the office one day this week . Not to mention we get to see the entire mission which is nice. Places like Oxford and the White Cliffs of Dover (where I have never been) and other places like Bath. Then there are the islands of Jersey and Guernsey. But the best part is I still get to work in our area. I feel confident that we can find a family and baptize them through the Lord’s help. I mean of all the people in our area there has got to be at least one family out there God has prepared to receive the gospel yeah? So who knows I am really excited.

The hard thing is trying to motivate a few missionaries who are wasting this precious time the Lord has given them but on the up side it is great seeing all of the amazing miracles and hard working missionaries in our mission!

This week we did a lot of training for the new missionaries who came in. We got about 10 new missionaries. They come in and stay at the temple overnight and we train them in various things. It is totally funny cuz they look up to us like were the big wigs and know a lot.:)

Love you tons!

Elder M. White

new address:

22 Copeland House
Rathlin Road
Crawley
West Sussex
RH11 9GA
England