SUN SUN SUN AT LAST!

Elder Hays has yet to make good on his promise of photos so I thought a comparison of Keighley and Phoenix weather might be apt today.

Praise Da Lawd!!!! We finally got some solid sun this week! So that was a great part of my week. Lol, unfortunately it rained so hard on my birthday, I walked into all our appointments looking like a drowned bear :p But I still had a great day, and we went and grabbed some Mexican food at a restaurant near our flat, so that was a nice way to spend the day :) It was also really cool because all the other missionaries in the zone called and left voice messages of them singing me happy birthday! Haha, I need to make sure to do that for our district leader Elder Cole on Friday, since it's his birthday, and he's a fellow Arizonian! 

 

It's been a great week though! Our district though is having a bit of an issue with finding however. All of the companionships are struggling hard with finding new investigators. We haven't found a single one this week, and we've been hitting the pavement every single day! Even the sisters here, who usually have a full list of people their teaching, have been having a hard time keeping solid numbers. Elder Schwarzkopf and I are going to fast off and on for the next few days and pray to see if we can get an answer on how best to proceed. We're also going to ask the Ward Council about any potentials/Less Actives we should reach out to. 

 

That's been a bit frustrating, but Elder Schwarzkopf and I have been pretty open in talking about it, and we've both come to the conclusion that it's definitely a test of our Christlike attributes we chose to work on this transfer. I choose Patience, and he choose Christlike love. My patience has definitely been tried with the frustration of people constantly slamming the door in our face. But we're keeping diligent and are trying to learn what we can about the people here, and how best to help them. One thing we've been working on is the Ward relations with the missionaries, Elders specifically. Pretty much a huge part of our goal here is to gain back the trust of the members. WHICH MEANS LOTS OF SERVICE PROJECTS! Lol, so far this week, I've moved a washer from one house, taken it to another, and helped install it. I've painted an old lady members bathroom and Kitchen. I've helped a member move all her stuff from one apartment, into another, and then took everything apart and reassembled it, and we've dug up concrete fences and and helped lay a new foundation for the next ones that are going in. So I'm just a bit sore ;) But it's alright, in the end that's part of why I'm here!

 

My missionary purpose is to invite, and hopefully bring, others unto Christ, and if that takes a few knicks and bruises on my part so be it :) It's almost a good thing we're getting so many service projects, because it means the Ward is starting to trust us again.  So all is good over here :) 

 

The food has been good this week! I got two spicy meals from the members as a birthday gift, so yay! Oh BTW Mom, no, I haven't gotten the packages yet. However, it could take a while. I got a few letters from the Wheats, and those took about 20 days to get here sooooo.... 

 

I am having a lot of fun though! Elder Schwarzkopf and I have now gotten to the point of inside jokes, so I think that's a pretty good indication that we get along. Oh! One story before I go. I had my first *ahem* fight with a street contact... We walked up to the man in the park and asked him if he'd ever met missionaries before. I was all smiles and was totally prepared to leave him alone if he just said buzz off, but he got this glint in his eye and just started railing on us of how we're indoctrinated idiots. We pretty much just smiled and nodded our heads to try and placate him, but then he said "You just have blinders on and refuse to see past your little book", and I just said "Have you ever been to one of our services" Him:"...No" 

Me: " Have you ever met with missionaries to learn about what we teach"

Him: "No..."

Me: "Do you even know what religion we represent"

Him: " No"

Me: " Well then aren't you the one with the blinders on? You're standing here yelling at two people who approached you completely no threatingly, and yet you have zero Idea about what we teach. Would you like to learn more?"

Him: "No! You boys have no life experience, what could you teach me!"

In my head all I could think was, "How to form a logical argument"

then he just started yelling about how that book was absolute rubbish and that we just hid behind it's pages because we couldn't think for ourselves, soooooo I snapped. I threw the Book of Mormon in the mud and just yelled back, "You're right, the book is complete rubbish. The book means literally nothing, it's value is probably about 5 pounds. But it's what IN the book that's important.", then Elder Schwarzkopf pulled us apart before we could deck each other. So that was definetly a test of my Christ like patience hahaha!

OH FREAK OUT OF TIME, CRAP PICTURES, SORRY, LOVE YOU BYE!

The Week of Grans

Brennan still has not been able to upload photos so here is a random photo of a bus in the town he is in.  Thanks to the Internet. 

Hey there! Ok, I have 25 minutes to write this letter. LET'S DO THIS! Hahaha, this week's been really awesome! Elder Schwarzkopf and I have been working really hard to find some new investigators to teach, which means LOTS of knocking. Lol. The people here love to open the door, yell "NOT BOTHERED" and just slam the door, so Elder Schwarzkopf and I have started saying "not bothered" to each other in the middle of our conversations. We have found a few really sweet people though.

This week had been the week of old grans! Lol, they love to have the missionaries in to talk about their day and what they're doing. We pretty much try to listen, give them a few scriptures that will help them find peace, and then leave. It's the leaving that's hard! They LOVE to talk about their kids, grand kids, and cats!!!! One day, we knocked on a door to this house, and It was super hot (for over here), I was sweating like crazy because we had just jogged up a hill, and we had had the last 4 doors not answer when we knocked, so I was two seconds away from telling Schwarzkopf that we should just skip this house since it was obviously abandoned (broken windows, ruined driveway, overgrown grass, etc. etc.) but we knocked, and we got a flipping miracle! A little old lady answered the door, and immediately went "finally, get in here Elders". We went in and talked for over and hour! Apparently she's been taught by missionaries off and on for the last 25 years, but had lost contact with the church when she moved here, and then the old elders never got in contact with her because of her move! So now we're planning on teaching her again, and she committed right there to read the BOM, and pray about it, and after saying that she pulled out a super old Book of Mormon, that was so dog eared it looked liked she'd read it 5 times through already! She explained that every few years she'd pull it out and try and read it! WOW! So that was AWESOME! Honestly, this mission is so great. It's hard, there are moments where my legs feel so sore that I want to just lay in the middle of the road and nap, but in the end I just know that if I put one foot in front of the other, the big guy upstairs is gonna give me an extra shove up the next hill to help me out. I hope that makes sense.

I finished reading the BOM, and so I'm now going through Doctrine and Covenants, which has been pretty interesting. I LOVE section 84-88, because it just has so much awesome stuff in it!

 The members here are so nice though, they've fed us almost everyday that I've been here, and they're just such solid and level headed people! It's awesome!

Did I mention bible basher to you? I think I did.... Oh well, I'll mention it again because I can't remember. The kids under the age of 15 here, love to yell "BIBLE BASHER" at missionaries while they walk down the street. At first It kinda bugged me.... A LOT, because If anyone knows me, I'm probably the least bible bashy guy out there! But now I kinda just feel sad for these kids.

A lot of young parents here see that the church gives us such a good foundation, that they want their kids to be involved in it.

Sorry, no pictures this week! I was about to download some when Elder Iverson called and informed us that we're moving the 1st of July, not the 1st of June, so I'm out of time :( Love you guys so much! BYEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

12 hours later

(

(as you will also note, he makes mention of it only being 12 hours later.  This is because we were able to skype with him and see his adorable face on Mother's day which was really fantastic. This letter followed the next day.  He seemed super happy when we skyped with him and we loved being able to talk to him for an hour)

Hi! Hahaha, well it's just a few hours later, but it's Pday now, so I get to write again! Lol, it's weird because I've written almost every other day this week! But from now on it'll go to the regular once a week schedule  So today we're going into Leeds to get my coat, and I have to get some food because I'm FAMISHED since I don't have any at the flat.

 I'm gonna see if I can get this photo thing to work, since I don't really have much to write since we talked yesterday, one sec.............Nope, no clue. I'll see if Schwarzkopf know's more when he's done writing. But I did find one really cool thing while I'm here! They have these machines here in a bunch of stores where you can just walk up with your phone and print pictures from them! The cool thing about them is that I can just walk up, and put my SD card in and print some as well! So, I printed about a dozen today for 4 pounds, and I've decided to start a photo album, so I bought a booklet for them! BUT you can also have them make a CD of all your photos for a few pounds, so if I really have no way to download my photos from my camera, I can just put them all on a CD and send them to you guys! I think that's a pretty good solution to the problem if I can't figure out how to get it to work! Lol! So how's everything with you guys? 

 Oh! One other thing happened today! President Pilkington called us today (Newbie over here), to check in on how we're doing. He told us that we should start to focus on Member lessons, and less actives, or as he put "bringing the lost back into the fold", SUCH A COOL DUDE! So that's nice. Did I tell you guys that we're not suppose to call newbies "greenies"? According to President Pilkington, it's an insult in some parts of the country here, so we're called "little stars". 

 I love this quote by either Holland or Bednar, that discusses the scriptures in Ether on when Jared's brother saw Gods finger "When we have faith, it is then proven by experience. When faith is proven by experience, it is no longer faith, it is now pure knowledge. When we have pure knowledge, God can no longer hide his face from us.", I just think that's such an awesome promise, and it makes so much sense to me. Like, we talk about having "faith", but really we just have faith for a little bit, until God proves to us that our faith was well placed, and then it's no longer faith, because we have evidence of it's truth. That completely changed my feeling on this whole "we must have faith thing" that's talked about so much. Like, yeah, we have to have faith, but It's not something we have forever, once something is proven right, we're no longer acting on faith, we're acting on the evidence that it's right. It's just stuff like that that makes me even more certain that the Gospel is true, because it just makes sense. It's completely affirms to me that scripture in revelations, that "Plain and precious things were taken out of the book of the Lamb", and then in the BOM how it says "Yea, this book contains those things that are plain and precious to me". I guess one thing I'd say to all of you, is if you aren't currently reading it, START!! Lol, I promise I'm not becoming some weird religious nut! I'm just learning way more on this mission then I ever thought, AND IT'S ONLY THE FIRST WEEK! But seriously, I'm having such a good time. My legs hurt, my arms hurt, I'm tired constantly, but I'm always happy for some reason! It's so cool :) Well, I love you guys! Talk to you next week! 

P.S I'm gonna have Schwarzkopf help me next week see if I can get this photo thing worked out, Sorry about that! I'll try and be better! 

LOVE YOU GUYS SO MUCH! 

Leeds/Keighley

due to the internets ability to stalk people - i found a photo of Brennan's new neighborhood

Lol, well, I've finally made it out of the MTC and into the field! So far, it's been a bit strange! But in a good way! So after my last email, we all went in a van to the stake center here in Leeds, and I met with President Pilkington and his wife! They're awesome! Sister Pilkington is a super sweet lady! President Pilkington is awesome too! He's super passionate, you could almost describe his personality as "fiery" (it took me a whole minute to find those quotes signs, because they're the number 2 key here, and the @ sign is where it is on a states keyboard). But he's really funny! It's pretty hilarious, he gets so passionate sometimes, he just yells out "WELL BLOW ME!!!" and you can see all the missionaries struggle to hold it together :p I then met my companion Elder Schwarzkopf (I hope I spelled that right, I can't see his badge from this angle). He's German (Hamburg) and has been here 6 months. He's a really genuine guy, and seems to really be trying his hardest with teaching me the ropes! After meeting Schwarzkopf, we hitched a ride with Cole and Manugh back to Keighley where we live. It was an...interesting ride to say the least! We sorta got lost on the backroads, and ended up going way out of our way! Lol, but it was good to get to know everyone! Cole is actually from Mesa, and he's our district leader. BTW my address while I'm here in Keighley is 74 Mannville Rd, Keighley, BD22 6AT, UK.    We're living with a member family, in their third floor apartment. It's a nice place! We have a seperate bedroom, which is more then some can say! The family has two cats, one's name is Thomas, and the others is Jasmine. Thomas is an adorable white cat with orange splotches, and he opens the door and bounds upstairs to have us pet him. He's really cute. Jasmine is a persian cat, and as everyone who's lived here has described, she's "A very Posh cat", and I didn't get how a cat could be "Posh" until I saw her and..well... she's pretty posh! It's good to have them around though, because it gives us a little mascot. 

Mom/everyone: We're going to try and skype you on mothersday (sunday), and see how that goes. 

Alright, I gotta go. Love you guys soooo much!

And so it begins! Week 1

Elder Hays left on April 23rd and arrived at the MTC in England on the 24th.  We received a letter from him the day he arrived letting us know he was there safe and sound!

Here are excerpts from his letters home so far: 

Ok, so you'll have to forigve me because this is going to be a kinda short letter. I've had issues with my email, and it just started working and I'm CRAZY jetlagged! I got here totally fine, and everything went great. I'm here at the MTC and it's a beautiful building and I'm super happy!   THERE'S ONLY 14 MISSIONARIES HERE! And that's all there will be for the next two weeks while I'm here! It's actually pretty cool, and leaves a lot of space open for us. The other Elders and Sisters I've met so far have been awesome, and I couldn't be more excited about getting to know them better! I miss you guys, and I love you lots and lots! I've really hit it off with a few of them that I came in with, and we seem to get along well. I really love you guys so much, and I can't wait to hear back from you. Well, I think I'm gonna go shower and stuff! Mom, would you email me back all of everyones email addresses so I can just add them to my list? Love you guys! Talk to you next wednesday (p day)!!!!! XOXOXOXOXO

And the following week: 

Alright guys, I’m gonna try and make this one  long ish, but it may be fast because I’m getting my haircut in 10 minutes. So let’s see how I do!

This week has been really interesting! I’m finding that I ABSOLUTELY Love the MTC! Honestly, it’s so much better then everyone made it seem! Lol. I’m still here with just the 13 other Elders and 3 Sisters, and we’ve all gotten to know each other pretty well! Everyone is super nice, and helpful! My companion is Elder Ilori.  He’s incredibly knowledgeable in scripture, and can quote practically any passage you want him to from memory! He’s been a really great companion, and we’ve pretty well established a solid line of communication, boundaries, and a great teaching style on the investigators.

Ok, this email thing is a little annoying, simply because some of the keys are not the same as a US keyboard, so I have to spend a minute hunting for certain things! Lol, but it’s all good! Half of the Elders here are from the US, and the other half are English, Swedish, Italian, and French. It’s been super awesome learning about each other’s cultures and stuff!

We went to the temple here today, AND IT’S SO PRETTY. Like seriously, the grounds are so impeccable I can’t even! I’ve taken a few pic’s, but not that many. I’ll see if I can get on the computer one more time today so that I can share them with you, but If not, I’ll try and remember for next week! 

Mom was right, I mayyyyy be a bit spoiled when It comes to food! Lol, the food here is pretty good, but everyone here acts as though Gordon Ramsey himself just set it down in front of them! Hahaha, but It is good! And we have 3 meals a day, and then a snack before bed, so there is a LOT  of it! Ok, I’m running short on time.

I really am having so much fun, and I’m so happy I made the choice to come. It’s not going to be easy, and I know I’ll have my moments, but I really do feel that this was 100% the right thing for me to do! Well, I talk to you guys next week!

and then he was able to utilize the computer one last time that day: 

Hey! I was able to get on one more time before the end of the Day! We just ran to the store, which was my first time out in public with my companion/tag/everything! Which was a bit weird, but a bit cool as well! I just got my haircut, and it’s not too shabby! I was going to download photos, but my camera died, so I’ll try to next week! Lol, it’s funny, all of the missionaries in the entire MTC are writing emails right now, which means there’s 14 of us sitting in a semi-circle writing on laptops! Hahaha, it’s a bit weird with only 14 of us, but it’s also SUPER cool. I never have to worry about waiting for a shower, I never have to worry about getting a seat at lunch, and I never have to worry about feeling cramped for space! It’s bizarre though, this MTC is made to hold over a hundred people, and so there’s loads of empty rooms! Lol, we take about three rooms on the dorm floor, and there’s 20! Just in our wing! But it’s so awesome because we’ve all gotten to know each other really well! I share my room with Elder Ilorio, Elder Corrano, and Elder Boukuzba. Corrano is from Naples Italy, and he’s awesome! He’s wayyyyy helpful, and loves to joke around, which is perfect for me! The sisters here are super nice! So there’s 9 of us here going to England, and then 5 of us going to Germany, Alpine (Austria is also in that mission). The German Missionaries have been here 5 weeks, so they’ll leave with us, and they’re really nice. Well, I probably got to go! I love you sooooo much, and I’ll talk to you next week! IDK if I’ll be able to write the night before going into the field next week, So IDK what day I’ll be emailing you next! And I don’t know what the situation is for Mothers day. I LOVEEEEEEEEE YOU! Talk to you soon! –Elder Hays (I just really wanted to say that!)