Week 88: A full week of going EVERYWHERE!

Heya peeps!

Hope ya'll are enjoyin the nice sun that's happening! 

It was a great week here in the England Leeds Mission! Elder Woodside and I traveled quite a bit within the past 7 days... More than I have my entire mission! We visited 4 out of the 7 zones/stakes in the mission, and went on several exchanges with the missionaries there!  It was lots of fun, and because we were on the road, we ate TONS of fast food ha ha. But don't worry, we've picked up running in the mornings again, so that should take care of those few poor food choices last week :)

It is so much fun having the opportunity to see and work with the other missionaries in the mission, and to help them and train them on things they can do to improve their areas. But you wanna know something interesting? Going around all of these powerful servants of the Lord seems to help me see those things that I can do better even more. So not only do I get to help the other missionaries, but I also have the blessing of improving my own service and obedience to the Lord! This work is amazing!

So we started out having a P-day with president and another missionary, and we visited several of the nearby historical sites and monuments. First off, we visited Sandal Castle, a castle in Wakefield. For those of you who saw the King Henry VI Part 3 competition piece for my high school, I was standing at the location of where Richard, Duke of York was killed in battle by my character, Lord John Clifford. How neat is that?!  We also visited Wakefield Cathedral, which is oh about 700 or so years old! England has some interesting stuff, ya know ;) You should check it out sometime!

On Thursday Elder Woodside and I traveled up to the Billingham Zone, where the blessed area of Peterlee resides! At the same time, I found out that Elder Woodside had never eaten a chicken parmesan, otherwise known as a 'Parmo'. So guess what! That's exactly what we got for tea! However, we didn't have any place to eat it... So we went to Carol Winns home! Surprise! Blast from the past! Carol was quite shocked, but pleasantly surprised :) She invited us in and fixed us right up to 'getstuckin' and start eating :) Boy was it good to have a parmo again!

Sunday came, and the London 2012 Olympics haven't quite started yet, but the torch is already here and has passed though Leeds!  And we caught a glimpse of it as it was passing by us! There were SO MANY PEOPLE there to watch, but it was a great experience to witness. Bring on the games!

So there's the highlights of the week so far (in a nutshell). Hope you enjoyed it! Til next week!

Love,

Elder Gabriel G. Spencer

Elder Woodside eating his first 'Parmo' strait
from Geordie's Pizza Shop!

Us and president in front of Wakefield Cathedral

The London 2012 Olympic Flame/Torch!

The MASS of people walking back after it passed. And me :)

Week 87: Happy Father's Day!

Hello!

Another great week in the England Leeds Mission over here :) Life just doesn't seem to slow down and take a breather, huh? That's okay, though... Trying to keep up keeps it interesting ha ha ;)

So! We had a very interesting week here! Elder Woodside and I was blessed to be able to do some work in our own area on Tuesday!  We spent a bit of time knocking in an area near one of our other investigators, and it wasn't long until we got in doors with Tabeth, from Zimbabwe! We were able to teach her the first lesson, and we discussed the similarities between our two faiths, as well as the key differences (prophets, book of mormon, etc). It went well, and we set up a return appointment for next week :)

Its nice to get out of the office every now and then :) Speaking of office, I thought you might wanna see what office life is like! So check out my first pick. :)

Best thing thats happened this week:

BAPTISMS!!!

Woo-hoo! Back in Newcastle, by last area, two of our investigators Moriah and Zenobia entered into the waters of baptism!!! AND BOY WAS IT HOT!!! The younger of the sisters, Zenobia asked me to baptise her, and when we stepped into the font I couldn't help but give a bit of a quiet yelp of pain as the water was piping, almost boiling hot! Zenobia, who is 11 years old, was a trooper, and plodded on through the steaming water. After the baptism we literally ran up the stairs of the font out of the water. From the waist down, I actually looked like a tomato! Really! And my legs felt like jelly... It hurt so bad to wear my suit trousers afterward in fact, we went back to the Newcastle flat and I changed into some gym shorts for the two hour car ride back to Leeds! And my feet... Oh my goodness, ever step felt tender! Don't worry now though... Each of us who were in the water are much better now! These girls were a joy to teach, and they were found through their mother, whom we knocked into about 5 or so weeks ago while looking for people in the Lost Sheep (aka AUF) file.

On Wednesday, we celebrated Elder Woodside's 21st birthday with one of the member families here in Leeds 2! It was fun, and we just barely finished off the leftover chocolate birthday cake today! (There was a lot of it) See Third photo.

Also, on Thursday, Elder Woodside and I hosted the Zone Leader Council! It sure was different this time, while not actually being one of the zone leaders, but it was still fun to set up and participate in :) See last photo

Well, this week is also going to have several adventures that we are quite excited about! I'll be sure to take some more picture this time, as well!

Love,

Elder Gabriel G. Spencer

Week 86: Back to the Land of My Inheritance

Heya everybody!

 

I'm back to Leeds! The place that I started my mission! This time, in Leeds 2!  I absolutely love Leeds :)

 

I'm now serving with Leeds with Elder Woodside, from Pownal, Maine!  He's been so much fun to serve with, and he is absolutely fixed on helping me become the best that I can possibly be, which I am very appreciative of!  Right now the two of us are serving together in the office, helping out the president with anything he could need.

 

In my new area, we had two baptisms! We witnessed the baptisms of Anja (9) and Luca (8).  They had been taught by Elder Wadsworth and Elder Woodside, and then Elder Wadsworth just barely went home on Thursday (which was an experience in itself!) and so I was here to finish off the rest of the teaching before the baptism happened on Sunday. 

 

So, I've got some good news and some bad news... The good news is, I've started up my habit of writing in my journal for every day!! Before, I'd be lucky if I wrote in my journal once every two weeks or once a month... So that's good :) 

The bad news is... My P-days have dramatically changed. Actually, more like non-existent. So I don't get the chance to email as much... So it looks like my weekly emails might lack a bit of meat until I start to get a hold on my new responsibilities... So please, if my emails start to get boring or very short, know that is only because I am fully enjoying the busy life of a missionary over here in England. :)

 

Anyways! I hope you all are doing well! Thank you for still being interested in my life, even after I've been gone for so long!

 

Love,

Elder Spencer 

 

PS I promise I'll include some pictures and some fun stories with the next week's email!

Week 85: Breaking News, from Newcastle!

Happy Diamond Jubilee, Your Majesty!

This past weekend was the celebration of Her Majesty the Queens 60th anniversary of serving on the throne, and what better ways to spend it than with

BAPTISMS!!!

(See first picture)

That's right! Plural!  On June 2nd, 2012, our investigators Emma, a university student from China, and Zinnah, a mother of two from Liberia, both entered into the waters of baptism and were confirmed members of the church!  I really wish I had enough time to type the conversion stories of these two great people, but unfortunately, I'm at a pakistan-ish internet cafe to email, and here time is money! So I must hurry, because that is not the only big news!!! 

Sushi!!! (See second picture)

Finally, after almost two years of being without it, we found a Japanese buffet restaurant, with Sushi! And it was delicious!  And we were able to work out a discount, by inviting over 10 people to come. Ah, it was soooo good. And at the end, they had little tubs of Haagen-Dazs ice cream, included in the buffet. Yum! We liked it so much, that we took part of the sunderland zone there yesterday. They loved it as well!

And last but not least, it was transfer calls last night, and to much surprise...

I'm moving to my last area!!! Which is the blessed land of my inheritance...

LEEDS!!!

I'm moving to the Leeds Zone, within specifically the Leeds 2 area. How great is that? I originally started my mission in Leeds, and now I will be finishing it in Leeds! I am so excited!!! I really feel so blessed. I am sad I'm not going to be here in Newcastle for the baptisms that will happen in a couple of weeks, but I know that Leeds is where the Lord wants me to go. So that's where I'll go!  Luckily today, in celebration of the Queen, our ward had a party and I was able to say good bye to almost everyone :) I took some pictures of the Chinese members with whom I became such good friends with :) I will miss them!  I was only in Newcastle for 5 weeks... Because it was a shorter transfer... But I am thankful for the memories, experiences, and friendships I have had here :)

SO! My new area is Leeds 2, right? Right! So that means I have a new address... But to be honest, I'm pretty sure the address is right next to the Mission office, and mail seems to get there quicker than anywhere else in the mission, so if you have any letters you're just dying to send me; [because Im sure there are plenty(c)], please send them to this address :)

Elder Gabriel G. Spencer

England Leeds Mission

Lister House, Lister Hill,

Horsforth, Leeds

England    LS18 5AZ

Also, this being my last P-day in Sunderland, we went to Alnwick (pronounced 'anneck') Castle! Which is another location of where they filmed Harry Potter! Remember the part in the first film, where Harry was having broomstick-flying lessons? Well that's where we were today! And we took some epic photos! (See Last picture) 

Wish me luck in Leeds, because like always, I'm going to need it!

Love,

Elder Gabriel G. Spencer

PS Pop quiz! Guess which of the following I have eaten in just the past week:

A) Ox Tongue

B) Chicken Feet

C) Salmon Head

D) All of the above

The answer?

D! Gross, huh? The ox tongue would have been good if it werent so darn chewy... The others were just plain gross...

Week 84: Another Week of Fun in the Sun!

Heya everyone!

This past week was a blast! We had several things that were just full of instruction, upliftment and meetings!

First up was Tuesday morning, we had a mission conference with Elder Jay E. Jensen! It was great! It was the first time in about 3 years that the mission had all met up together for a meeting. Elder Jensen talked about the top ten skills of high baptising missions, about more quickly bringing the spirit into the lives of our investigators, and about several steps of conversion, all of which were very helpful and insightful.

Wednesday came and the Sunderland Zone came together for its monthly Zone Specialized Training Meeting.  In this meeting, the Zone Leaders are to instruct for about 45-60 minutes on whatever they feel the missionaries in the zone would benefit most from. This is followed by a training model and several other things aimed at improving the effectiveness of the zone (not to mention, zone unity).  The meeting was a hit, very spiritual, and several missionaries commented that several points they heard was just what they needed :) We very much felt guided by the spirit as to what to teach, and we were very grateful for those sacred experiences that we recognized.

Thursday came, and I went on exchange with my good old companion, Elder Jestice! Its hard to believe that it was over a year ago that Elder Jestice and I were serving together in Doncaster. Right now he's serving in the North Sheilds area, which is right on the beach (which, of course, I love) and we talked about so many good times of Doncaster... It was great! Brought back some good memories :) On the exchange itself, both of the evening tea appointments flogged (cancelled) so we bought some good 'ol tradional kebabs! (See picture)
   

Friday came, and Elder Wadsworth and Elder Woodside (Assistants to the President) came up here to train a couple of missionaries, and met up with us for lunch. Elder Wadsworth is finishing his mission in about a week, and so it was kind of a good-bye celebration for one of my closest friends/role models on my mission. Elder Wadsworth and I have served around eachother for pretty much my whole mission, so we've had quite a lotta memories.
 Saturday came, and two of our investigators passed their baptismal interviews! Zinnah, from Libera and Emma from China are looking forward to their baptism this weekend, and we are so stoked! And what better way to celebrate that with Zinnah's mom making us some great swedish/african food after the interview!   

Well, Sunday happened, and church was great! We had someone invite their friend to church, and she came! We will be teaching her tomorrow :)   
Well, we're going to go meet up for lunch with some of our chinese members, so I've gotta blast!
 
Love,
Elder Gabriel G. Spencer
 
PS Ive attached a picture of last week's university speech for you to enjoy!

Week 83: Speech at Newcastle University!

Hello again!

Great news! We saw a bit a sun yesterday! The most we've had in the past 2 or 3 weeks! And it was SO NICE!!! I hope it continues... Looks like today isnt going to work in our favour :-/ Oh well!!

So this past week was quite the experience! For starters, we had zone conference and we went over to the York zone once again to recieve instruction from President and Sister Lindley. It was fantastic, and it was lots of fun being able to catch up with past missionaries/companions.  We also recieved quite a bit of instruction that I feel will be of great use to the missionaries in the zone.

Im sure you all are wondering, especially since its a kind of a ''out of the ordinary'' type thing, about how my speech went at the University of Newcastle. So, I'll just give a bit of background.

Currently in our teaching pool, we have several chinese university students who are studying translation as their major (English-Chinese).  When I first arrived here in Newcastle, Elder Burt and Elder Thomas (who I had replaced) had already agreed to speak on any aspect of our religion at a small chinese conference at the university for one of the classes.  Since there would be many speakers at the conference, we were both given 15 minutes each, which would be basically cut in half because to each of us would be a chinese translator, who would interpret for us to the class. So really we were given about 7 minutes to speak. Now, Elder Burt and I both found this as a wonderful opportunity for a missionary tool, and so we both decided one of us would speak on what a missionary is, and the life that they live, and the other would basically give a breif summary of lesson 1 (The Restoration). I'll be honest with you, being in a room filled with chinese students with them all intently listening to you was quite intimidating. But we did it! And it was a great experience. Elder Burt spoke on ''The Life of a Missionary'' and I spoke on ''A History of God's Dealings with Man''. Both topics were quit intriguing to the chinese, as some of them had little or no knowledge on the subject of christianity, and we both at the end felt quite great about what had been said. It was also quite interesting to speak for about 3 or 4 sentences, and then have the translator say exactly what you said, only in a completely different language. It was also a very special experience at then end of my speech, when I was able to bare my testimony to the class (minus the ''in the name of Jesus Christ, amen'' part) and then hear it translated into chinese :) I definitley felt the spirit at that point :)

Also this week! We both broke a new personal record for number of tea- appointments in a day! On Saturday, Elder Burt and I were fed by members/investigators 4 times! Usually, being fed twice is a challenge physically! But we pushed through it, and came out victorious in the end. See the pictures, we held up our fingers for which meal it was...

Pic #1 Liberian (African) breakfast at
our scheduled investigator, Zinnah's home.

Pic #2 English Lunch about 3 hours later at the Hoben's home.
(Sweet and sour chicken, English style)

Pic #3 Chinese Dinner about 2 hours later,
pork and sausage at Li Run's home.

Pic #4 Again, African food at an investigator's home,

 this time, one hour later, tomato rice and chichen.

By the end of it, we were done with food. I felt SOOOOOO fat. But its okay. We survived ha ha and what a challenge! (The last one was by far the most difficult)

This week! Mission conference! The WHOLE MISSION is getting together for the visit of Elder Jay E. Jensen, of the Presidency of the Seventy, in York!  We are alls pretty excited, even if we do have to get up at 4:30am tuesday morning in order to get to the meeting in time... Ugh. Wish us luck!

Love,

Elder Gabriel G. Spencer

PS You can expect photos from the conference next monday! The photographer will email them to us this week.

Week 82: A very happy Mother's Day to you!

Hello everyone!

 

Once again, (though it is rare) the weather is simply beautiful over here in Northern England!

 

It was a more than wonderful experience yesterday when I was able to skype my loved ones :) The time was a bit more limited, but it was amazing nonetheless!

This past week was absolutely FILLED with adventures everyday! Monday was ''get to know the new zone'' P-day, where everyone met up and we played sports/watched a couple films. Immediately following P-day, we began our first exchange with the Elders directly south of our area, in Gateshead. Gateshead is kinda known in the mission  as the ''Jew capitol of England''   There were Jews everywhere! It was amazing! We walked up one street in particular (the high street) and it literally felt as though we had walked into a different country. They don't really talk to us missionaries though. They're really nice people, like they say hi back and stuff, but its way difficult to strike up a conversation with them :-/ But anyway!

 

So the exchange was fun, it ended at district meeting on Wednesday, which was also quite enjoyable. Thursday came, and we were excited to attend another monthly Zone Leader council. This one was very inspiring, and we had the opportunity to receive instruction from President's son, David. It was great to catch up with the other zone leaders and to see how the mission is doing as a whole, and wonderfully enough, its doing quite well!  The England Leeds mission still stands as one of the most productive missions in all of Europe! And in my opinion, it is the best :)  (see first picture)

 

Friday came, and we spent a bit of our extra time outlining a speech that both Elder Burt and I have been invited to give at Newcastle University.  Elder Burt is speaking on the life and schedule of a missionary, and I will be speaking on ''A History of God's Dealings with Man.'' Thankfully, the speeches only need to be about 7 minutes long, but still its quite intimidating. We're excited though! Expect more details and a full report next week.

 

Saturday came, and Elder Burt and I held another ''District Leader Specialized Training'' meeting for all of the district leaders in the zone. This was another great opportunity to meet up and get to know the district leaders here in the zone.  Also, on Saturday night, we went over to an investigators' house and celebrated their birthday! Emma, one of the Chinese students, turned 24 this past weekend, and had to celebrate the way chinese celebrate best, with food!!! Yeah!  Most of the food was... Interesting. But we were all more than full by then end of it. (see second picture) And cooked cashews are amazing!

Then Sunday came, and we were blessed to be able to skype our families back home. I can't believe its come so fast... but that was the final time I would talk with my family from England! Ahhh! I have SO MUCH LEFT TO DO!  Please pray for me to be guided to do the things I need to do here in the sunderland zone... Because Ive got a feeling that says that through these last few months... I'm going to need as much help as I can get to get the most out of my mission!

 

Love,

Elder Gabriel G. Spencer

P.S. Here are some more pictures, as promised!

 

Pic #3: Elder Burt!

Pic #4: Elder Pass and I at the transfer meeting, the day before he flew home to California.