Enjoy Where You Stand....

We have been trying to jump start our area but it all seems in vain! All of our investigators dropped us. All the eastern Euros... ya they dumped us, and that family we found the father said he didn’t want his family apart of the church so that was sad... All the people we were excited about have dumped us. We have been praying very hard though to see success. As I said we work in the area about 50% and we figure all it takes is one contact. We have been fasting each Sunday and praying very hard to have that one contact. The fasting has been great though. I love  how much more spiritually in tune I feel when I fast, and once a week isn’t that bad :)

We also went back down to Plymouth this week. I ordained Chao Li with the Mel. Priesthood that was pretty exciting! While I was talking to him he said how he has been saving up money to build the "Latter day Saint Church of Jesus Christ up in my hometown". He is such a good guy. I really hope he can get into BYU or some university here. God has such a big plan for him. I love the Chinese people. While there we contacted a lot of Chinese people. I forgot how many there are in Plymouth. There are loads. At one point Chao Li took us out to eat with one of his friends who now wants to be taught by the missionaries and he said "Ya Chao Li tells everyone about your church. He has no fear of  letting them know he believes in Jesus." It was nice to hear. He is such a good missionary it was so good to see him again.  Once again I love Devon. Devon is Heaven. It really holds a special place in my heart. Also while down in Plymouth I saw a bunch of RCs. They are doing so great!
This coming week we will be doing an exchange with Elder Snow and his comp. He and I will be headed off to Slough to go and see Jo and Nellie. It will be good to see them again.

This week I have been studying the fall it has been really interesting. As APs we have a Laptop and I have put my study journal on the Laptop! And I love that. I have been having some really great studies. Also this week we have been doing a lot of zone trainings. That has been fun, I love teaching. Pres Millar is a stud. I love serving where I am and I love serving with Pres. Millar and all the missionaries I am blessed to serve with.  Enjoy where you stand! And I really

am :)

Well family I love you all so much!
Love ya all!

Elder Michael White

Missionary Life

Well, this past week has been a crazy week for us. We have been working the area like crazy and are seeing some good success. We don’t have any dates as of yet but there is a member referral from Lithuania we are teaching and we are excited about that.

 The next two days we won’t be in our area. We are going to go on a road trip for a couple of days. Tomorrow we are headed up to Oxford. I’ve never been there so I am excited. Pres Millar has really gotten into his groove over here. He is a fantastic mission pres. I really love him to bits. The other night he took us out for dinner and I was laughing so hard I about died!

I went into London... again. Crazy place up there especially during the Olympics. We gave the departing group of missionaries a tour of London. It was good. This past week as well after all of the moves Pres. Millar went to Germany for a few days for a conference. We held down the fort.

We have been working with the RCs as I said. Jonathan and Debi are rock stars. We took them to the temple and they loved it again! The ward is so good to them. On Sat. we went to an elder’s quorum get together and Manoj who is a recent convert and the elder’s quorum sec were there. Manoj made us all curry. It was so good. Today we fasted for our area. We are trying so hard  to find an individual or family who will be kingdom builders before I go home.

Chao Li came up on transfers with one of the missionaries. He was one of their companions for the day.  I thought we should go do baptisms and so after we had done our training we went into the temple with Chao Li and did baptisms! It was so good. He told me after "I love bringing people to God." Melted my heart. I love that kid. By the time we were done  it was too late for him to go home so we got pres. permission and he stayed the night at our flat. We watched the Joseph Smith movie. He had never seen it and didn’t know how Joseph Smith died. He has three friends down there who are being taught by the missionaries. He is such a great missionary.

Well family I love you all so sososoososso much!

Love you all!

Elder Michael White 

P.S.  One of the ZL's took these pictures of Elder Simmons and I and sent us this little note.                     Just a quick tip found on page 22 of Preach My Gospel.  "Study at a desk or table where you can write (not laying down or sitting on your bed), organize your study materials, and remain alert."
Keep up the good work!
 

Olympics and more

This week is transfers! Crazy week... I will miss Elder Simmons. He leaves on Wednesday.  Today Pres. called a new AP and his name is Elder Albrechtson. He is from Logan Utah. He is great! I seriously love the kid to death.  I am sooooooo stoked to serve with him. Good man. His personality is just like Kyle Esplin.  

This past week Elder Simmons and I went to visit a lady we had reactivated.  I don’t know if you remember Della Barbour.  She is the one who is in prison. Her prison is in our mission. She was recently   moved there, and so we went to visit her. We write her a letter about once a week. Now that she is in our mission we can visit her.  When we got to the prison, they did ID checks, took my badge, my tie, my wallet, everything that was loose they took. Then we got strip searched, then they took us into separate rooms and the door behind us would close, and then the one in front would open; this repeated about four times until finally we got into the main hall area and there was Della Barbour! We sat and talked with her for about two hours and she is doing so well! She is reading the Book of Mormon.  She is in the Book of Helaman right now. She writes to us, and this is what she said in one of her letters, "I cannot tell you how much you both mean to me. I feel as though I was the reason why you were both sent to England. I don’t know where I would be today without you two to help me through this tough period of my life. Thank you." I believe that whole heartedly; that she was one of the MANY reasons I came here. It was good to talk to her. Her family is doing well too.

Another cool part of the week was when we took Jonathan and Debi to the temple for one of our teaches. That has been one thing I have tried to do in our spare time to solidfy these RCs.  They had us over for dinner. Man I love them. They made me and Simmons promise we would be here for their sealing. I told them I can’t promise but I will try. When we told them Simmons was leaving on Wednesday Debi started to cry and say, "I don’t want you guys to go." It was really touching and just made my heart melt! 

As far as the Olympics things are crazy as ever. When the games are on TV at members or at the temple visitor center we see a few things. When we go out knocking doors it is funny cuz while we knock we still get rejected but the people are so much more happy about it! Especially cuz Gr. Brit. is doing really well for this year.

Also as I said earlier Simmons and I went up north of the river for a few reasons. It really is crazy. It was funny though cuz we would pass Olympic venues and hear cheering. Like we were at Horse Guards Parade (beach volleyball) and then hear all of this cheering and then "USA, USA" and Simmons turned to look at me and he said "God bless America!" It reminds me so much of the Olympics when it was in Utah. The magical feeling in the air and just everyone is so happy. It really has been amazing! 

Well anyway... life is good here in good ole England. I am sure I will have some more stories to tell you all. 

Love ya lots!

Elder M. White 

Ann Romney

Things here in London are in manic. That’s all I can say!  I did see the opening ceremonies it had  a lot if British humor. The song they sang at the beginning "Jerusalem" yeah greatest song in the world I want that sung at my homecoming! That is our mission song, love it to bits. 

We have been in London a lot, we have been setting up a bunch of stalls for the missionaries to work at that are by the Olympic events in our mission. While we are working the stalls we wear our countries flag underneath our badge like the temple square sisters. It is fun to have people from the states come up to us and talk cuz they see our flag or wherever the other missionaries are from. In the London zone there are four Americans and the rest are from all over the world! Denmark, Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Poland, Wales, Scotland, England, Australia, Honduras, South Africa, and France!

One of the places we set up a stall was right next to the London eye and that is where you get all of the street performers! Just like in NYC the dudes who paint themselves or the dancers that is where all those guys go. Those street performers are territorial! There was this clown who was like the clown from you know where and in his act he was funny and cute but then after he came up to us and was swearing and saying we shouldn’t be there that we were taking away from his act. We gave him a pass along card and he walked away. Then we ran into these Ghanaian street dancers and they were awesome! I went up to them and in their language told them that I love fu fu (an Ghanaian dish) me pe fu fu pa!  and they went nuts! They loved us from that time forth! We got all their addresses so the missionaries could go teach them.  Also while we were there this blond American lady came up to us and said "hello elders" we had already seen a bunch of members of the church and it was obvious she was one of them cuz she called us Elders. Then I saw on a name tag she had, it said "Ann Romney" and I asked any relations to Mitt and she said yeah he is my husband! Boom!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So we met Mitts wife! We talked for a bit and then we took a photo with her. That was my excitement as far as the Olympics is concerned. I’ll enclose the picture of E Simmons, me and Anne Romney. Small world:)

Dad cycling was in Surrey that is near the temple. Rowing in Winsor where I started my mission. The Olympics are alive and well and so am I.:)

Well, family hope all is well and love you guys to bits!

Love,

Elder Michael White

Big events in London

This week was Wimbledon and man that was huge here. Murray made it to the finals and that is the first time in 73 years a Brit has made it to the finals so the whole country was shutting down. Traffic was really bad. I had to drive up north of the river and it should have only taken me an hour but it took me four and then another four to come back. It was my first time driving in central London and man that is scary!!!

Remember, how I said that we weren’t doing anything for the Olympics... well I lied. The Olympics are now getting big and the country is getting stoked. This week or next week I can’t remember which we are going to see the torch come through woo that will be fun. Also there are loads of Olympic events in our mission. I never knew there were going to be so many. At least 15-20. Rowing is in Windsor (Slough my first area)  We are meeting with the London mission Pres and his assistants here at the temple on Thursday to discuss some things to do during the Olympics. The London mission has Hyde Park Chapel all set up to use for missionary work. We will not cross the river but I think in central London we will be setting up a few booths and placing more missionaries in those areas during the games. The events will take place all over our mission as well as the rest of England. We are excited about that. England is expecting about 50 million people to come into London over the next few weeks. Already we are seeing lots more Eastern Europeans and Chinese. I am stoked for that. I told Elder Simmons for a p-day we are going into London during the gamesJ if we can.

We are teaching a couple of Muslim. They invited us to a mosque and I have always wanted to go so we are going this afternoon. They are pretty nice guys. I will let you know how that goes.

I don’t have too many stories for the week. We are working our area about 50/50 now which is nice. We are teaching a French lady right now and some Pakistani guys. The work is going well.

I love you all so much!

Love,

Elder Michael White

Goodby Shamo's Hello Millar's

These last two weeks have been so great. Sorry, I didn’t email last week, this is what I have been doing for the last two weeks.

First of all a tender mercy, I lost my journal at Heathrow airport. Heathrow is not some small airport, Heathrow and Paris are the main connecting airports in and out of Europe and so it is HUGE!  I had been keeping this one for the past six months! I did everything to find it. I called the lost and found every day and I even filed three missing reports...nothing and then they found it 6 days later! That was intense for me. I thought it was gone forever and then they found my journal. It was a mirical!!!**

Last week was all about Pres. Shamo and his family leaving. Before the Shamo’s left I went north of the river with them, and the departing missionaries for their tour. They took us cuz they wanted to make sure that we would have a trip up there. That was fun touring around with the departing missionaries. We had moves later that same week. We had 18 new missionaries come in, it was crazy.  We did training for the new missionaries and kept them at the temple for the night. They went to the temple the next day and then we shipped them off to their areas. Then we went over to president Shamo’s to help them pack up. By this point it was Thursday afternoon at 3. We helped pack and clean from 3 pm to 2 am.  The next day we went to the airport and picked up the Millar’s and brought them back to the house. President Shamo and President Millar had about 3-4 hours together and then we said our goodbyes to Shamo’s and dropped them off at the airport.  It was really sad to see them go.

A little bit about Pres. Millar. He was a practicing cardiac surgeon up until two weeks ago. In 1993 he invented a new way which the medical world uses to do some procedure on how to insert a stint into a valve or something like that. He worked with Russell M Nelson. He is a very straight forward man and down to business. Work first then play. He is a very kind and loving man. It is like seeing new missionary in a grown man. He will do such a great job. I am so excited to learn from him. His organization and professionalism is something this mission will learn from him. Love the guy already.

Well family I have to go love you all so much! Thanks for all you do :)

Love,

Elder M. White

Things here are going good. I am really enjoying life. I won’t lie this week I really was craving knocking some doors and we were able to squeeze that into our schedule. I think due to president leaving it is really making him want to go on full turbo. Then Pres Millar has been speaking with us about setting up other stuff for when he comes in. We have been busy. 
We have been doing a lot of mission conferences this week. The President has wanted to do his final interview with all of the missionaries. While he interviews them Elder Simmons and I do training. We have been training on pride. Probably because it is something I know tons  about ;) I think that is such a fascinating subject and I love to study it. I think it applies so much to life and how we can truly put off the natural man. I had a few missionaries come up to me after the training and say that they thought some of the things I had said were a bit harsh I told them it was probably cuz they were guilty of it! So what?  So am I. We all need to suck it up and now learn. Pride is flowing out of each of our ears. It has been really good though and we have had a very positive response. We have hit four of the nine zones and are planning on hitting the rest this week.
On Saturday we took our P day and President Shamo took us down to Portsmouth and we went to the D-day museum. That place is really neat. I love things like that. England really got leveled in the war. It was crazy. Pretty much all of London was destroyed. I don’t know how they didn’t surrender. Hitler just mauled them. But Churchill never gave up. He was one dedicated bloke. We also went to a castle which was fun. I love to go into castles. I think they are so fun to see. It was really fun to spend time with the President and his family.

My RC are doing for the most part really well. I have come to realize that they must conquer their own adversities and I can’t do that for them. Man I love them all to bits, but God loves them more than I and will look after them all.

Love you all

Elder White