Good things happening Plymouth

Hi Family & Friends,

I did not get transferred. Two areas in one year. Wow. Elder Hotchkiss did get transferred. He is now up in Crawley (near the temple). I am now serving with Elder Simmons. He is from Idaho he is from a little town near Rexburg. He is GREAT! He was one of our former district leaders in the Zone, and I am stoked to serve with him. This is his first time being a Zone Leader, and the kid is a super star. He has been out a year and three months. I am sure happy to serve with him.

We have had a pretty good week. We are still working with Co------. He is still preparing for baptism and is well stoked for it. We are now just starting to teach him the commandments. He loves the Church; he loves the B of M. He loves it all!!! (Thanks Young for chatting with him on Facebook) He is an all star.

The work has been going much better this week. Elder Simmons and I have really seemed to gel well and seeing a lot of success! Our finding is good and we have found many families which we hope will continue to progress. The work is starting to pick up.

This week we had to drive all over picking up missionaries for transfers. We pretty much saw all of the southern part of England. So we are going back up to London for Zone Leader Council today. For Halloween we can’t go knocking on doors, but we are going to have a Halloween party at one of the ZLs flats up in London. London gets nutty on Halloween. Guy Fox night is this week too. I bet here in Plymouth we can celebrate it, but in London there is no way. Too scary. All the stores are selling fireworks and stuff saying "get ready for bon fire night." I think it is a fun holiday, but not in London.

OH also before I forget. Next week is my driving test.... ugh. NO FUN!!!! I am so scared. PRAY!!! It is £60 to take it and 22£ more for the car!

Our Zone for the most part is doing really well. That is nice. Funny how missionary work does go up and down, eh? Sometimes it drives ya insane! So, anyway, the zone is doing well.

Also just some fun miracles in the mission. Our mission started up another Spanish branch in the mission. We have tons of South Americans in London and now we have 10 South American missionaries (up until this year there hadn’t been one South American missionary in this mission’s history). Yesterday they had 15 investigators at this Spanish branch. Man... Makes me miss the London area, with all the missionary work.

We got a new Fijian Elder he came to the mission one week ago. President Shamo asked him when he came in, "why are you here?" He said, "I don’t know. All of my friends go on missions in the islands, but for some reason I was sent half way around the world to a people who hate to talk and a country that the sun doesn’t shine. I have no idea why I am here in England." Pres. Shamo assigned this boy to an area called Salisbury (near Stone Hinge), and the very first door this missionary knocked on... is the door of his uncle that he hasn’t seen in five years. His uncle, his aunt, and all his cousins. The very first door!!! He is invited in and all of them accept a baptismal date. He called President Shamo and said, "Now I know why I am here." The Lord truly does knows everything!!

Well, I have to go. Love you all!

Elder M. White

It was a good week

Hi,

You all sound good and happy. It is transfer week and I have no idea what will happen to me???? I guess I will find out on Wednesday.

Colin (chao Li) is doing well. He is still set to be baptized. That man is a flippin stud. Yesterday he told us that we were some of his best friends. I am really excited for him. He is solid as a rock and loves the gospel. If I stay here I will be able to continue teaching him and that will be sweet to see. Honestly he is the only person we are really teaching as of right now that is a strong investigator. We picked up four new investigators this week... one is a Samoan lady we met the other day who went to an LDS school and graduated from seminary and has read the BofM and stuff but she was never baptized cuz her parents wouldn’t let her. Her whole family on the mom’s side is LDS and so we talked to her and are seeing her today. Hopefully she will turn into an investigator. We are excited about that.

This past week we had to drive all the way down to the bottom of England to a place (called lands end) it is a really pretty area. Penzance is right next to it. Anyway we went down there for a district meeting. After we got there we found out that we needed to go up to the other side of our zone (exeter) up at the top of our zone for a baptismal interview that one of the district leaders couldn’t do. It felt like we drove FOREVER that day. But when we got there I had a neat experience. I was asked to interview a man from Poland for baptism; this man spoke little to no English. The sisters who taught him used pamphlets and a Polish Elder in our mission translating over the phone. (Now let me give you the stereotype of polish people. They are all catholic. They all love God. They all don’t speak any English. I have never known any Polish person baptized in our mission. I have never had any success with any polish.) I was giving this interview (I had a polish missionary translating) this man knew everything. Literally. He knew everything. He had read almost the whole BofM. He knew the POS the Restoration everything so well. I couldn’t believe it. He was so clean and pure and wanted to follow God so much. I could literally see his countence reflect from his eyes. I began to weep as we talked and it was so great. After as I was talking to this man. He told me he had driven from Poland to England. “Driven” to find a job, he has no money, sleeps in his car, he literally has nothing. But he was telling me how his faith is so strong in the restored gospel of Christ. Then this man who probably doesn’t have much to eat pulled out a bar or chocolate and an orange for me and said in his broken English "this for you." I literally couldn’t hold back. What a spiritual giant. A true follower of Christ. Anyway that was really neat for me to meet him and feel of his giant spirit.

Ok well hey I have to get going I love you all so much hope all is going great at home.

Love ya tons!

Elder M. White

The world keeps moving on

Hi Family & Friends,

Sounds like everyone had quite the week! When I left on my mission I thought that everything back home would stay the same! False. It is funny how the world moves on without you. I guess that shows my selfishness and how the world revolves around me, as it should ;), ha, ha.

This past week has been tough and good, on Wednesday I woke up and we literally had nowhere to be, no appointments or anything, and it was soooooo frustrating. Anyway... during companion study we felt that we needed to stay in the flat and read the whole book of Alma (and this was not out of laziness). So we did. We read the first 45 chapters of Alma for about four hours. WOWOWOWOWOWOWOW, talk about what we needed! It was most defiantly a tender mercy from God and he truly spoke to me about how I can improve and how the work should go so that was neat. Later in the week we had zone training and Pres. Shamo was there and we trained the zone concerning baptismal commitments and prayer commitments. It was really good. Pres Shamo was supposed to interview us but he didn’t have time for Elder Hkiss and I , but he got through the whole zone so that was good. We had a Stake correlation right after zone training and we met with the Pres. Martin, the Stake Pres. That man is a saint and I love him and his family to bits. It was a very spiritual evening, and I loved it to death.

As far as our investigators, our Chinese pool is going good! Yo-yo, and now a man named Colin (Chao Li) now have a date!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hale- lujah!!! All I can say is it is about time. They are both from China and both from Beijing. Colin said he added Young on facebook... hahaha made me laugh. I think he wanted to see a Chinese member of the church. If he has any questions he can ask you on facebook, and you can answer them. We do not have any members in our ward who are Chinese. We do have plenty of Chinese material. So we use that stuff. I handed out my 25th language in the B of M yesterday. That was in Persian. That was cool. England is a melting pot; more towards London though, but there are a lot of Chinese down here. In church we had three Chinese students there and they all like it. Colin loved it! He seems the most promising. He told me "I want to follow Jesus!" When we walked into the chapel the congregation was singing "The Spirit of God" and he was "WHOA!!!" he said he felt really good. That was neat. Young if you do speak to him remember to be simple, very simple. This is coming from a man who has no background in God or Jesus. We do feel really good about them and like I said especially Colin. However, only time will tell and they haven’t been taught any of the commandments yet. Colin hasn’t even really been taught the Restoration. We are teaching slowly and steadily at their pace.

Here is a cool stories. Well this week I don’t know if you remembered Della. She is a less active that one of our AP's introduced me to her about three months ago and we have been working with her, and she has been coming back to church. She is amazing and loves us! Yesterday we had dinner at her home and she got me a “B” day present so I thought that was nice of her. She got me three quarters or in America "capris" these are sport styled so you can play soccer in them. Ha; made me laugh. She told us that she wants to make it back to the temple. She hasn’t been in nine years. She is getting there.

Young, how great to go through the temple. Go back again and again and again and again. And go to the Manti temple too. ;) I love the temple.

Love you all, Elder M. White

Young has been a member for 1 year and I have been a member for 12 years

Hey Everyone, Oct. 10, 2011

I hope all is going good for the family back at home. It sounds like it is getting cold there and that snow is falling, and that the weather is lame. I talked to Kade Brewer’s MTC comp (he is in my mission) and I got his email address and sent him an email. Kade said he is sick of the bi-polar weather here. He made me laugh cuz I remember how much I hated the weather here at first too. But now I am kind of used to it. The weather here really is strange.

Thank you for all of the Happy Birthdays. My birthday was good. I didn’t really tell anyone it was my birthday. My zone knew and they all wished me a Happy Birthday. A lady in our ward found out about my B day and made me a cake that was really nice. But other than that it was a normal day of work. Probably the most selfless birthday I have had... Normally, I have really selfish B-days, oh false last year’s wasn’t about me either, because Young was baptized. October 9, 1999 was my baptism date and Young’s was October 9, 2010. That was good. I got up in sacrament meeting yesterday and bore my testimony about how I was baptized 12 years ago and my best friend Young was baptized 1 year ago.

This week we had Zone Leader Council. It was really good. I love going to those. We went up the day before because of travel time. We are way out in the boonies of the Mission. So we don’t see other missionaries much, other than those in our Zone. On the way up to London I stopped in Slough and saw some recent converts. They are all doing well. I never could get a hold of Yemy and Louise though... but the rest are doing great. It was really fun to see them. Emi--- is preparing to get his P-blessing and the Mel P-hood. That is exciting. I am stoked about that. My recent convert down here is doing well also. Russel is great, and he is preparing to get the priesthood. Rebekah is solid. She just needs a calling. Ryan is great.

This past week we have seen much success with finding. We found eight new investigators! They are all foreign. Which is interesting because I have baptized more English people than I have foreigners. It is really strange for our mission. Usually missionaries baptize more foreigners.

We found a ton of Chinese students, and actually they are all really cool. It is so amazing how prepared they are to receive the gospel. I just worry if they will understand what we are saying and the importance of the gospel. It is funny cuz remember, Young how I tried to learn my testimony in Chinese before I left? Completely useless cuz I am horrible at Chinese. But they understand when I say "wo sha bun dun" meaning I am stupid. I remember that one from Connor Snyder. They think that is funny and listen when I say it. Anyway we have taught all eight of these investigators once. Hopefully all of these good Chinese people will see us again so I am not celebrating till we teach them a few more times.

We also ran into a Nepalese family. They were really awesome! I am excited to teach them again. The only problem is they don’t speak English; the church doesn’t publish the BofM in Napoli either. I find that weird cuz I have the BofM in Persian and Hindi but not Napoli. Anyway... we will work with that. The other worry is they will forget about our appointments. The Africans and Asians seem to do that. The African girls we ran into the other week dropped us due to not wanting to join another church. Students are often like that cuz they are away from home and don’t want to change because of fear their parents will get mad.

That is our teaching pool right now. We have all foreigners except a young English couple who can only see us once a week; they want to get baptized but not for a bit. I don’t think I will be here when they do, but they will. They are surrounded by the gospel; literally. We are so happy we have something to work with and we know that God is guiding us.

Mom: How is YW going? I bet that was fun being at the temple ground breaking Saturday. I am excited to go to all of these new temples when I get home. I have got to stay on my game for going to all of the temples in Utah! So Payson, Provo, and Brigham City. Those are the three.

Dad: Things are going good with the Zone, for the most part. We have hit a dip in the Zone and in the Mission as well. Pres Shamo sent us an email talking a lot about what you also sent to me. Funny how the spirit works, eh?

Nate/Bester: Sounds like you two are busy! I am praying for both of you to find good jobs and good opportunities. Keep up the good work.

Steve/Stac: Same for you. Steve keep doing great in school!

Tom: Wow yeah how is Elders Quorum? What does the singles ward cover? What area?

Megs: Stop dating boys. They are no good anyway. Serves you right for spilling steak sauce on your dress. :) Also who is in your region now days? It sounds like you guys play timp and all of these other schools up north? I am guessing Springville still is in your region. What place in region did you take?

Young: You are going to the temple! It was really neat but really different. Just remember the feeling you have when you go in.

I love you all my good family and thank you for your prayers. We really can feel them.

Love you all.

Elder M. White