Pouring down blessings rather than rain.

Dear Family,

There are TONS of JWs here. I met them lots and lots in Ilford. Did I ever tell you about when the tracted into us during our studies? haha. We told them who we were and tried to exchange materials and they sort of just ran away. There kingdom hall was close to where we lived so we always saw them. I don't see them as much in King's Lynn, but everyone always thinks we are JWs. It's kind of frustrating sometimes. But it is interesting when people rudely ask us if we are and then when we tell them we aren't they are suddenly ok to talk with us. CofE doesn't proselyte. Most CofE don't really even know details of what they believe, it's purely a traditional thing for most and they just classify themselves generally as Christians. And it's pretty common that they only go to church for Christmas, Easter, Weddings, Funerals, and christenings.

Mum, sorry about not translating my letters: a brollie is an umbrella. The rain left this week. It has been SOOOO hot! Seriously. The humidity makes it feel like a million degrees. We have gotten rain here and there which just makes it even more humid. I don't like muggy weather. But atleast with the sun out it means lots of people are out at parks. And we had a ward beach party that was really fun. Except we got cursed with the plague whilst we were there. It was pretty overcast and all the sudden all of us were covered in these nasty little black bugs. Supposedly they are called thunder bugs (they follow wherever there is thunder according to the members). They were everywhere. All over our arms legs, clothes, in our hair, ears. It was awful. I'm sure it was a hilarious site to see all of us trying to get rid of these bugs.

This week has been much better than last. We are really making efforts to be more consecrated and we are seeing great results. Especially this last few days. We have seen so many miracles and felt the spirit so much! It's the BEST!!!

Where to even start??

First, we have a LA we're working with who is named JAcob. HE's 27 and the son of a really active member who recently returned from serving a senior single sister mission (she is divorced). A couple weeks ago he said he just had lost all interest in finding out the truth and really finding out for himself if God is there. We couldn't get him to pray ever, but he said he would read the scriptures. We had given him just one verse to read and a whole week to do it. He ended up reading the whole chapter twice! Then we felt prompted to teach WOW which he struggles with but he was open to trying to live it. His mum told us that the other day he went to get his car MOT'd ( I think it's similar to a smog check?) and it failed and he was really upset about it. He was so upset that he came home and... read the scriptures!!! Wahoo. great progress. HIs brother and his brother's family are coming to visit from America and we're hoping we can get him to come to church with the whole family.

We have been doing quite a bit of finding. We did lots yesterday. We were tracting on one side of the road and I saw a house on the other side I thought we should try. The lady was definitely not interested, but we just continued on that side of the road. At the next house we met this wonderful teenage girl who is SO open to the gospel and we had a great lesson with her. The only problem is she has two mums (civil partnership). She asked us about it and we let her know God's views on marriage, but with the spirit and love and she was open to it. She is going to talk with her mum and step-mum about us coming to teach them all. We are really hoping their hearts will be softened to atleast letting her learn about the gospel. She is so great!

We also visited a recent convert family. They are from the Dominican republic and been baptised for a couple months. Their grandma just passed away and they have completely stopped coming to church. It is a single mum and her three kids (2 daughters, 13 and 10 and 1 son, 4). The 10 year old is named Evelyn and she is so AMAZING!!! I love her so much. She was outside playing when we came, but we were visiting Justina first (they live right across from eachother). She was so happy to see us and said she was so sad she couldn't go to church because her mum wasn't going. She begged us to teach her. We taught Justina and then headed to Evelyn's. She tried to get her mum and sister to come to the lesson but they wouldn't. She said the opening prayer and she prayed that her mum and sister would realise that they were making the wrong choices. She really opened up to us about all her struggles. About how her mum and sister don't want to go to church anymore and how her mum struggles with paying tithing and how sad it makes her to see that. She said she didn't know why she had to go to church every week but she just knew it was the right thing to do. She is so sincere and loving. She has such a strong spirit. She said her friends are starting to swear and she doesn't want to be around that but they won't stop when she asked and she's scared to not have any friends. She is sad so many of her friends don't believe in God. She also was so confused about why God took her Grandma away when she had prayed that He wouldn't. It was a hard lesson to teach and to help a 10-year old understand these things. I just was filled with so much love for her and for her faith. I admire the youth of the church so much. They face so many hard things, but they are SO strong. I hope to have faith as strong as Evelyn.

Then we stopped by a PI (potential investigator) from the Areabook that was a referral from a member that past sisters had received. It was a flat so we buzzed and a man answered. We asked for the woman and he said she had moved and he had been living there for a month. We explained who we were and asked if he had any religious beliefs. He said "Actually I was going to ask you when you could come back and see me." !!! He said we could come the next day. We are going to see him tonight! So cool. He sounded genuinely interested. We did a role-play for lesson 1 in Comp Study this morning to teach him. WOW. The spirit was SO strong as we taught about Joseph Smith. IT was the neatest experience and best role-play I think I've ever done. It's amazing how the spirit will ALWAYS testify of truth, even when we are just practicing teaching in our flat. We really hope we can teach him even more powerfully with the spirit tonight!!

This is the BEST work ever!! I love you all!!!!!

Love,

Sister Davis xoxox

By small and simple things are great things brought to pass

Hello Family,

Well, in transfer news... I am staying in King's Lynn with Sister Couper. We figured we would both stay so no shock there. We are getting another set of Elders though! That will be fun! One of the assistants just got released and is coming to King's Lynn to open the area and train. This week has been a bit up and down. We may not quite be seeing the results we would hope for, but Heavenly Father is really opening my eyes to his tender mercies. I'm learning to really be grateful for the little things. Just yesterday we had this woman be so rude to us. We simply asked her how she was doing and she went off about how rude we were because we're missionaries and how dare we stop her and try and talk with her on her way home from work. I think I would have been really mad normally but I was really just confused at how she thought we were being rude and needed to learn some manners. The more I thought about it, the sadder it made me that she get so upset that we love her enough to stop and try and share something that is really special to us and that could really bless her-- maybe she just had a bad day at work. This was near to the end of a day with a lot of rejection. I'm not happy that she got so upset with us or perhaps misinterpreted our approach, but after that I was really able to appreciate all the kind people or those that would even just smile at us, even though they weren't interested. It really showed me why we need opposition in all things. Even down to the rude people to help us appreciate those that are kind. I don't think I would have appreciated the kind people as much if it weren't for that woman.

Also a great experience came just today when I opened my email. I can't remember if I told you that Sister Couper served in Gillingham before she came to King's Lynn. I of course asked her about everyone there. When I asked about Shayla, she said she didn't know her and didn't remember seeing anyone like her at church. She was only there one transfer but I still thought she should know Shayla. Even before I had this conversation with Sister Couper, I thought I should send Shayla a picture from her baptism and write her a letter. I sent it awhile ago and hadn't heard anything from her. I was getting ready to email Shayla today when I saw I had an email from her. She said she had stopped going to church for awhile and was thinking about whether or not she should go back when she got my letter. She decided to contact the missionaries go back and really enjoyed Church this last Sunday. What a blessing from God! I am so happy that she decided to go back.

We have gotten quite a share of rain this week. On Thursday we had a STL exchange with the sisters in Ipswich. I was going to Ipswich and S. Jacobsmeyer was coming to King's Lynn. Because we live out in the country, train tickets are a lot cheaper if you buy them early and on-line. So we had bought our tickets and I wrote my confirmation code in my planner. Then late Wednesday night I realised my planner was missing. I figured out the only place I could have left it was at the church when we were there earlier that day, but we didn't have enough time to go get it before we needed to be home. We thought we could wake up a little early on Thursday and for exercise run to the church to get it. No problem. We woke up and it was a little drizzly but nothing too bad. We started off and by the time we got to the church we were dripping wet; it was absolutely pouring. Thankfully my planner was there. transportation is not like London so there were no buses running that early. S. Couper was worn out from running there so we just walked home as fast we could (which took longer than we had planned for). We got so soaked. Our shoes were filled with water and it was just pouring rain the whole time. I'm sure we were quite the sight. Dripping wet, with no jackets or brollies. haha. It was fun though and made for good memories. And I got my tickets fine and had a great, dry day in Ipswich while S. Couper and S. Jacobsmeyer got poured on the ENTIRE day. English weather is the best!

Last p-day we went to the queens estate where she goes for Christmas, Sandringham. So cool. We didn't get to go in and look around because we didn't have time, but the grounds are very nice. Hopefully this transfer we can go inside and look around!

Katie's family is doing well. We took the perfect member with us last week. Now we just need to work on getting them to church (which is difficult because there are so many of them and they don't have a car.  But I know God will help us!!

The church is true. The spirit is real.

I love you all!!!!!!!

Love, Sister Davis xoxox

Oh, I hate technology.

Saddest day. I just lost my whole letter to you..... I don't have too much time now that I lost that whole letter. Sometimes I hate technology. grrr..... So sorry.

Anyway. It sounds like you are doing great. Glad you had a great 4th of July. Ours was fun. Lots of great lessons and some A&W Root Beer floats!! It's been ages since I've had root beer.

Well, like I had typed before our week was much better this week than last. We're both healthy and seeing so many miracles. We've had so many great missionary meetings lately focusing on being exactly obedient, focusing on helping others repent, and having the spirit in our work.

We have found some really great families to teach. We are getting the members more involved in everything.

Mum, I really liked what you said about traditions and that it's not the places, but the people. It got me thinking about tradition and about how it is good and necessary for us to have changes in our lives. We met a lovely Polish woman who is VERY CAtholic. She thinks all we need is the Bible and tradition. But when we get stuck in tradition too long, then we just start going through the motions and follow men rather than have our heart in following God. Hopefully when we see her and her husband tomorrow their hearts will be softened and open to our message.

Us and the Elders from KL ended up being an hour and a half late to zone conference. What happened was we had to take two trains to where the conference was. The train from King's Lynn to Cambridge was late so we missed our connecting train to Ipswich (where the conference is) and so we had to wait an hour for the next train to come. And then that train was late to Ipswich. We were all really sad about missing the first part, but the part we were there for was really good. I got to see Sister Greenfield which was lovely!! I can't believe she goes home next transfer.

We found a lovely family who has the best 8-yr old investigator. She was practically begging us to let her pray at the end of the lesson (and she had never said a proper prayer, just the recited ones they would say in school). It was so lovely. They have 4 kids: 8,6,3,and 18 months. We are so excited to teach them. They went to a ward activity about 10-15 years ago. Goes to show that no efforts are ever wasted!

The gospel is true. I love you!!

Love, Sister Davis

Because I'm Happy!!! (yup, I finally heard this song... apparently it's President's favourite so the mission is making a music video for him)

Hiya Family!

 To answer your questions, King's Lynn isn't too big, just a fairly small town, but there are lots of other little towns we take buses out too. So it's annoying because it's lots of travel time, but we can't really do any travel finding, because there aren't many people on the buses and it's too far to walk. 20 gospel conversations haven't been going to well; SIster Couper was pretty sick this week and so we spent a lot of time inside. I made a lot of phonecalls, so I guess in that sense I talked with a LOT of people. Not as much success as I would have hoped, but she's doing better now so hopefully this next week will be better as far as finding and teaching.

Really mum, the people are so different here. Yesterday we contacted this referral. At first she seemed so good with lots of potential. Then she started saying how she was older than all the religions that have ever existed and that time had no holding for her; she kept saying we would never guess how old she was, but she wouldn't tell us how old, just that she was older than everything.  And she kept talking about how she wanted to run outside naked, but society wouldn't allow that (thankfully!!). It was so strange.But there are great people too. We met a Lithuanian yesterday that reminds me so much of Justina, except she is married!! Yay for marriage! Justina is still struggling with getting her ex-partner to move out . And we met another family with the cutest kids. The mum has been to the church before about 20 years ago and was pretty open. She is busy, but hopefully we can see her more. The kids kept asking when we would come back! I love kids.

The weather has been so crazy. Sunny one second, down-pouring rain the next. As a result of this we did the silliest thing to do in England: left our flat with no rainjacket or brolly (umbrella). Well, we got to the appointment dry but when we came out it was pouring and we had to wait for the bus. We got soaking!!!!! It was fun though.

Some fun things from the week: a swap shop for relief society. I got some nice new clothes to spice up my tiring wardrobe. yay! On Saturday we had a family history day. The mayor of King's Lynn came so I got to meet him. That was fun! It wasn't as successful as I was hoping, but it was still a decent turn out. I got to do some indexing. I forgot how much fun that is. Are you participating in the indexing day on July 20-21?

I really love the zone I'm in. We have fabulous zone leaders, Elder Nolan (from England) and Elder David (from Utah). They are great. My first day in this area they called and sang to me and they are just really great as showing they care and really want to help us. I think they are the best zls I've had my whole mission. And the DL is great too. We had zone meeting this week and it really was so amazing. I feel really united with the missionaries in this zone and we are all just trying to do our best and build the kingdom. We set a goal for 14 baptisms in the zone in the month of july (that would be more than any zone has ever gotten in the mission). We are going to see so many miracles!  Zone Conference is tomorrow. Since we're so far north we go to Ipswich rather than Hyde PArk. That will be a first for me, but I'm looking forward to it. I don't think I've mentioned yet, but an Elder serving in King's Lynn, Elder Imlay, is from Boulder City. He knows the Mays. He took Rachel to a dance. Small world. It's been fun to have some Nevada pride moments and reminisce about Vegas.

Joke of the week: What is the difference between England and tea?

Answer: tea can stay in the cup longer.

Hahaha. Good ole World Cup humor. I heard the US is out :( Sad day. But we found out we get to watch the Finals if we can get a member to record it and then we can watch in the next day!

In other news, I had a fried mars bar this week. I was disappointed. I don't know if it was because it was too greasy for me or if I just wasn't really hungry when I had it...

As a zone we are reading all of PMG in the month of July. 7 pages a day. We started today and I've already gotten so many new things out of it. We also did this activity to teach the entire first lesson in one minute using a scripture. We practiced with our companions and then they asked who did it. I had so they made me get up and do it in front of everyone. It was fun. Sister Couper and I have been practising doing it with other lessons.

Yesterday in Gospel Principles, the Elders were teaching about the pre-mortal life. They talked about how when we were there it wasn't called the pre-mortal life or pre-existence; it was called Home. I really liked that. We are just away from Home, working our way to get back home with our Father and with the rest of our family.

The church is true. I know it. I live it. I love it! It brings so much happiness!!!!

I love you all!!!

Happy 4th of July!!! HAve fun at Grandma's. I'm sad it's the last Hyrum trip. Enjoy it for me :)

Love, Sister DAvis xoxox