I had to give a talk yesterday at church on receiving inspiration and revelation.. I think that I definitely like going fast in life.. I want to be the fastest of my friends in running, I want to just go on a road with no speed limit and just go as fast as I can, I love music that is fast paced and my favourite animal is a Cheetah, which explains it all.. But I think when we go through the motions of life we start to lose track of our speed, we start losing concentration and we can become disorientated.. But I've found that whenever I need to get somewhere or when I'm really in a hurry everything slows me down.. Especially red lights. I hate them, but they help me to appreciate what I have around me.. Back home it was normally tractors, but they helped me appreciate my love of forests more.. It helped me to see what I was missing.. That's the same with life and the gospel, we start losing track of the beauty we have around us, we forget to pray, read or even go to church.. We forget that we promise to remember Christ, we forget all that we've promised.. But as we take time to apply the gospel, as we "SLOW DOWN" that's when our benefits will come. :)

This week I actually really enjoyed.. It went by very very fast, but
also very slow... Especially yesterday!!!
So, the news:

Elder Mattu is leaving and going to Middlesborough
I'm going to stay..............
In the mission and go to Sunderland , so we're both being moved!

I've definitely felt the influence of Christ throughout this training
experience, I've grown in many ways, more than I thought I even could
in many different aspects, I'm glad that this is a gospel of change,
but a change for the better.. We can become our best selves and we can
grow to appreciate so many more things when we apply the gospel to our
lives and do the fundamentals of the gospel. Elder Mattu is a great guy and everyone loves him. He definitely helped me learn that I need to be myself, not caring about what others think of me, to go with the flow and also love people!

But besides transfers, this week we got another new investigator who
has a baptismal date, unfortunately we won't be here to baptize either
of our people, we also had an investigator come to church, who also
stayed ALL 3 HOURS! Which they have never done before, they've been
investigating for a while too!

So, we were sitting in church on Sunday too, I wanted to bear my
testimony but didn't have time, what I was thinking of saying was; I
haven't been on this earth for very long, I don't have the most
experience, but what I do know is that this life isn't, wasn't or
meant to be easy, we will always go through a trial, good or bad, no
matter who you are, people suffer and that's just the way life goes,
we will never be able to escape trials or suffering, but what we do
have is a saviour, we have someone who can walk that journey with us,
who knows how to succour us, who knows how to support us through our
difficulty and hardships, I'm so very grateful for a saviour and
redeemer, who is Jesus Christ.. There's a quote that I said last night
when we were doing a scripture chase, I said: "the son of man hath
descended below them all. Art thou great than he?" (D&C 122:8) I've
definitely had them help me through my difficulties as a missionary
and through my hard times.

Snow in Hull

We had zone conference last week. The thing I took from Zone conference was definitely being patient and finding the good in people. Sometimes we'll be walking down the street and receive verbal abuse or when we approach someone they will just be completely disrespectful and mean, so I want to learn to just take it on the chin and not get aggravated or offended by it and just learn to develop that charity towards these people.

I also took in to deep consideration the relationships with my companion, district and the zone in general and want to develop that love for those whom I'm able to serve and be a true leader, to notice the opportunity and privilege I have to be able to support and encourage those beside me, to help walk beside them and love them throughout this journey of missionary work.

I really enjoyed zone conference and took many things from it, but them two were definitely the highlights from it. I was glad that we made sure to practice the lessons too because president was very close to choosing us at one point, I've learnt a lot just from preparing for zone conference and staying attentive and hope that I can maintain the goals which I have set for myself to develop charity and a love for those around me that will be uplifting and edifying.

This past week was fun...We worked in the snow for two days, it was freezing

cold and my face got frozen! It was very difficult especially because nobody was in their homes or on the street and those who were just weren't interested in what we had to say.. But we pressed on and found an investigator for the first time in 3 weeks. :) 

Hi guys ...sorry I haven't updated for a few week. It's been a tough time. I hurt my shoulder and been in a lot of pain. I went to the hospital and they said the best thing for me to do is take lots of pain medicine. So that's what I've been doing . I'm just trying to build up strength in that arm again.

Our week wasn't very busy but it was still good. ...we've found it really hard to find and keep our investigators. Everyone we have scheduled for baptism has not progressed that far and have fallen away. We find a lot of potentials but no one we can frequently teach or who can come to church so it's been hard to stay diligent and positive, but we are pressing on! This week there was a lot of walking and talking to people...we've been doing super super well with that! I can honestly say there were only about 7 people that we missed. It always feels good to know that we can say we did all we could and not have success rather than not doing anything and getting no success..we know if we are

diligent the Lord will bless us:). In the pictures there is an owl..have a look at the Mormon message "rescued by Christ "

With Halloween last week we had to return to our flats by 6 pm so we decided to pamper ourselves for a change. :D it was a lot of fun ! 

This week Elder Mattu and I were street contacting and we see a girl with pink hair walk past, who we stop of course, we had just an awesome conversation about her hair and her tattoos and we just had a fun conversation for like 25 minutes, she had to run because she was late to meet her friends for the Hull fair, but she told us we could go over the next afternoon, so we did. There were three of them there that day and we started by having a down to earth conversation about life, movies, music and we just had a good conversation, to when it transitioned in to what we do, with them asking the question, no effort of our own, we testified of God and the cleansing effect he has on our life, spoke of personal experiences, conversion stories, this that and the other and how we're really just normal teenagers, but with one difference.. our religion.. None of them flinched an eye-lid through the whole conversation and they want us to come over and teach the more of what we believe.. It really just shows that we are normal people, we're interesting people who have actual lives too, but not many people know how the gospel can change us ..I love how even though we're normal people, we can bring incredible things to pass!

Elder Jackson cleaning the toilet.

The joys of being a missionary....

I just had an incredible week, we found 2 new people to teach, Our investigator came to conference at the chapel and our other investigators watched it at their home..

I thought conference was amazing...The gospel is wonderful and I want to know all the answers, but these things take a long time to understand.. Sometimes when we teach people, it always seems to go into deep doctrine.. But I really do appreciate the fundamentals of the Gospel, having a testimony of a living Prophet, Joseph Smith as the prophet of the restoration and now Thomas S. Monson, knowing
the Book of mormon to be the word of God and that I have been able to receive that answer for myself.
The most significant thing from conference that I've figured out on my mission was when I learnt for myself that repentance is even for saints, not only sinners.. We all need the atonement, we need to apply it 24/7, without the Atonement, we would all be nothing.
I love these Quotes from conference ....

"Something changes within us as we testify of the restoration of the gospel. He will go before us, on our right hand and on our left, his spirits in our hearts and his angels round about to bear us up . "

"Sometimes it is not comfortable to stand up for Christ . But we need to stand up and testify with power and without hesitation. "

There has been a renewed energy in our area this week. We have an increased teaching pool. My district all had an incredible week, the best I've seen in a district my entire mission! I have zero complaints!:)

Things are going really well over here, I've found training again to be a great learning experience for me. 

So, I think this week I found out how to really pray, I thought I had learnt how to already, but this week was the actual learning experience, I remember one day just feeling exhausted physically and spiritually. I focused on the spirit to guide my prayer and it was literally like I was having a conversation with God. I felt like he was talking back to me and I spent this time on my knees. I remember having concerns about the area, wanting to improve as a missionary and so I went to him with them concerns and I felt like we literally had a conversation about everything. Elder Christofferson said that "to come to a point where you have nowhere else to turn, but to God, one truly learns how to pray" normally it is just a feeling that everything would turn out alright, I found that to be so true, I could only rely on God for the immediate need for help, I needed to realize that I need to take the day at the time and just do what the day requires, I need to rely on God to improve myself and the area to which I serve. Whenever I found that I went to bed after that, I've found that I'm having conversations with Heavenly Father rather than just talking at him. I found that he's very easy to talk to, but it takes us wanting and knowing that we need to walk through life with him and so turning to him.

This week for us was good ..we had an investigator come to church, we had a few 

lessons, one more person to start teaching ....I also can't wait for conference ! :D