Tracting in a rainy Gillingham (Walking in a winter Wonderland)

Dear Familia,

Well, like I said earlier, I think winter has come. Yesterday when we were getting ready to go to church, we looked out our window and saw it was all sunshiney. So I decided to leave my raincoat (because I hate having extra things to carry around, especially at church). Walking to church was lovely. Then after church it was not so sunny, it was pretty cold and we were walking to a lunch appointment at a members house and were a bit early so we started tracting and tried our best to deal with the cold... then it starts raining! Luckily, I was atleast smart enough to bring my umbrella. And I had a cardigan and tights (which I almost had left at home in the morning as well, thankfully I didn't) so I wasn't too cold, but poor Sister Som hadn't brought a jacket or anything, but one of the Elders had given her some gloves so she persevered. After that, we had appointments for the rest of the day in Chatham (another town next to where we live). Well the appointments all fell through.  So we were stuck in the rain and wind. We prayed to get a step-in and hoped that someone would let us in. Well, first door we knocked, the man wanted to hear more(Thanks to heavenly Father for answering our prayer), but of course it was just him at home and so we taught him about Joseph Smith on the door step whilst we were freezing, but it was an excellent lesson nonetheless. The Lord provides a way to accomplish his work. And now we know to ALWAYs have our jackets. haha. 

Shayla is back from holiday and is being interviewed today for her baptism on Saturday!!! I'm so excited for her!! And Meili (the Chinese investigator) wants to find a job where she doesn't have to work on Sunday. I hope that we can help her to find one through the church employment program. 

We have interviews in Canterbury next Monday. Hopefully we will still have time to email on that day, but in case you don't hear from me, that is why. 

The Lord is blessing us and we are seeing his miracles. This work is hard, but wonderful and so worth it. I'm so grateful for the gospel of JEsus Christ!! 

I love you all!!!! 

Love, 

Sister Davis 

Dearest Family,

Well, this week really hasn't been too exciting. We are desperately trying to find new investigators, especially ones who will progress. Other than Shayla no one is really progressing, however Shayla is AMAZING! She is on holiday this week, but when she gets back she's already to be baptized. Please pray that while she is away on holiday she will continue to stay strong.  We are teaching a Chinese woman (who has two adorable little boys) and we have been trying to get her to church a couple weeks. We gave her a chapel tour and it went so well and she said she would come if someone could bring her and we had a lift arranged and everything and then she called on Friday to tell us that she just got a new job and she's working weekends.. WHY?!! Sometimes Satan really drives me mad with the opposition that he puts in people's paths. But she is continuing to read and pray and hopefully as her faith grows and hopefully our employment specialists can get her a new job not working weekends (and hopefully she'll want that) and hopefully she will get there. Please pray that we will find those that are prepared!

Sister Som doesn't really cook so I've been doing it all, but it's great. Thank you mom for teaching me how to cook! We (well, really I) also made a delicious cinnamon cake for a baptism that the Elders had this weekend (someone that we passed to them). Sister Som had never had spaghetti before so I made her some this week because she wanted to try it... IT was delicious. Then we went to a dinner appointment at a member's house the next day. What was for dinner? Spaghetti. haha. And LOTS of it. It was the first time I felt uncomfortably full after a dinner appointment.

Our WArd mission Leader is really striving to magnify his calling. This week he called and asked us what appointments we had and then he spent all afternoon yesterday calling people to try and find people to teach with us. So great!

I had a really wonderful personal study yesterday about obedience. How many times can you find "If ye keep the commandments, ye shall prosper.." in the Book of Mormon? I'm making a list of all the times and so far I have atleast 10 where that exact phrase is used. It's so true. As we are obedient, then success is guaranteed to come. Maybe not in the timing we would like, but in the Lord's timing it will. Also, did you know there are new scripture masteries?! Some of them are the same, but some of them are different. I really like some of the new ones they've chosen. I haven't been able to look at all of them yet, though, but I'm sure they're all great!

Keep being the amazing people that you are! I love you all!

Love,

Sister Davis 

 

My dear family,

I didn't think you'd change THAT much while I was gone, but to hear you got iPhones proves me wrong. Our family is slowly entering the digital world. Dad, are you enjoying being able to sinc your Iphone and iPad? Thanks for the fun pictures Linda.

This week has been good. Zone Conference was amazing!! It was all about faith and it really was just so uplifting. Sister Som and I are working hard and having plenty of fun. We have learned much better how to work together. I am learning to be silent more and let her do more of the talking. I still do the majority, but as we continue to work on it, I know she will become more comfortable with it. I am learning some cambodian. How are you? is by far my favorite phrase! "tan yan so so by?" say that five times fast. Shayla continues to be amazing!! She is getting so excited for her baptism (21 september). She is going on holiday next week, so we are praying that Satan doesn't throw too much opposition at her; I also hope that when her sister comes to her baptism (she has already invited her!) that her sister feels the spirit and has a desire to learn more. I know it would be a great thing for Shayla to have that support, and of course her sister would benefit from the gospel as well. 

We have been working a lot with less actives. There is progress there, slow progress but progress nonetheless. We have also been asked by the Stake to visit all of the less active YSA and invite them to institute. We have quite a list and they are somewhat spread out, but hopefully as we split it up with the Elders we can visit them all before the next institute class starts- Book of Mormon!! Hopefully we will see lots of miracles with that.  We have been doing a lot of finding without too much success, but someone said that whenever someone rejects our message it just means that we are one person closer to finding those that are prepared. I try and remember that. And I remember that an invitation to learn about the gospel with love for the person and love for the Savior can never be offensive. Even if they aren't interested, as long as they felt our love for them then we have been successful. We have the most precious thing we can offer to people- salvation. How grateful I am for this opportunity!

We met this really nice Nigerian lady on the bus the other day. She teaches math and her name is Julie! Crazy. I guess all Julie's must love math. She was really nice and we were able to give her a Book of Mormon. Everyone in England is going back to school this week, so she was too busy to set up a time with us, but she gave us her information and said that she's free in October. Hopefully we can see her again! This work is amazing. The Book of Mormon is the word of God and truly testifies of Jesus Christ!

 

I love you all!!

Love, Sister Davis 

 

Sisters, Sisters, never were we such devoted Sisters. 1/3 of our mission is now Sisters. This is less than half of the sisters in the mission!! Crazy!

It's Raining, it's POURING!

Dear Family,

It's grand to hear you all are doing well and I wish you the best of luck starting school!

my address: Flat 13 Trafalgar Court, Trafalgar Street, Gillingham, Kent ME7 4RQ England

So... this week has been a bit hard. I am so grateful for the wonderful companionship I was able to have with Sister Greenfield and I sure miss it! Sister Som is wonderful and so sweet, but it just isn't the same. I will be honest and say it is very difficult to have a companion that comes from a very different cultural background. And then on top of that someone who doesn't really understand everything you say. We are plugging along though and the work is going forward. I struggle to know how much I should lead and take over and how much I should give Sister Som chances to get out of her comfort zone. It's hard because she is very soft-spoken and slower with speaking and everything in England is fast paced and people aren't very patient. Often times I have to jump in and help her out, but I also know she needs opportunities to learn and grow. I know Heavenly Father will help me to know how to help her. However, it is amazing to be able to see how much I've grown as a missionary since I've been out and how much more confidence I have in teaching and finding situations.

the lesson in Relief Society yesterday was just for me. It was on marriage. Before you think anything crazy it was in regards to relationships in general as well. As I've been struggling with Sister Som a bit I have been saying many prayers to know how to help our companionship work better, and then the lesson in Relief Society on marriage talked about how to resolve differences and how you can make companionships work better. Although it is a little different as missionaries, there were some wonderful principles I was able to learn and be reminded of to help Sister Som and help our companionship work better. Hopefully as I apply those principles I will be able to feel a difference.
Sister Som really is great though and has a strong testimony. She comes from a buddhist family, but her family joined the church when she was 8. I know I have much that I can learn from her.
Shayla is still doing amazing! She is going on holiday to Greece in a couple weeks and I pray that she continues to stay strong while she is away. Please keep her in your prayers. She was able to see a baptism yesterday (one of our investigators, Daniel, that we had passed to the elders got baptized). She loved it and said she was feeling better about her baptism. And thankfully, the elders cleaned out the font!
A wonderful miracle yesterday. WE have been working with a wonderful less-active, Irene. She has been pretty hesitant to come back to church and last week had said she would come for just sacrament meeting, but then didn't. This week she said she would come for sacrament meeting, but then right before church (sacrament meeting is the last hour) she called and said she was going to come for all of church!!! So she did! It was great! Our ward mission leader was gone and had asked me to teach gospel principles. I was glad because that meant the class would for sure happen. It was on prophets and I think it went well. Irene also stayed for the baptism and enjoyed it and the ward was wonderful at welcoming her back.
Other than Shayla we don't have any progressing investigators so we've been doing quite a bit of finding so hopefully we will find wonderfully prepared people, especially families! I'm excited for the miracles this transfer will bring!
This week we have zone conference! I can't wait. I love going to Hyde Park and I always learn so many great things. Also Sister Karyan is in my Zone now so I'll get to see her. I was able to talk to her on the phone last night for a bit (we can only call missionaries in our Zone) and that was really good. She's doing great and I'm excited to get to see her and all the other missionaries.
We've had lots of sunshine for the past few weeks. Well this week all the rain that didn't come during that time decided to come! It was POURING!! And worst of all, because it has been so sunny and not raining at all, I didn't have my umbrella with me so I got soaked! It was slightly awesome though I will admit. Sometimes you just need to have some good fun getting wet in the rain. And it wasn't too long out in the rain before we could go back to our flat and I could get dry. Also it was a warm rain which I was very grateful for. I am not ready for winter to come!
Dad, I especially loved the reminder that we all come on missions to convert different people, and sometimes even if we just convert ourselves in the process then we have accomplished a great work. In a talk I read recently Brent H. Nielson said somethings similar,"Had I labored all my days and converted only myself, the experience would still have been worth it to me." I know that is so true. Thankfully I have already been able to see the spirit touch the lives of others, but I know that the real miracles the Lord is working are in me and I'm so grateful for this opportunity to strengthen my testimony while getting to share it with many others. I know that I truly am the greatest beneficiary of my mission and the Lord is shaping me into the person that he needs me to become. "Missionary work is not easy because salvation is not a cheap experience. Salvation never was easy... How could we believe it would be easy for us when it was never, ever easy for Him?"-Elder Holland. I know that it's my salvation that I'm working towards and the Lord in his great mercy allows me to assist others in their journey in the process.
I know that Jesus Christ lives and that he is my Savior. I am so grateful to him for the sacrifice that he made for me. I know through him that salvation is possible and that we can all return to live with our Heavenly Father and with each other again. Thank you for being the wonderful people you are so that I can look forward to living with you all forever!
I love you!!! You are all in my prayers and I know that the Lord is watching over you.
All my love,
Sister Davis

So Long, Farewell

Dear Family,

 

Transfers always make me so anxious. We had to wait extra long last night to hear the news and since we hadn't heard anything by 10pm Sister Greenfield was hopeful that we would get another transfer together (I wasn't convinced we'd be that lucky). And I was right. Sister Greenfield is leaving Gillingham after being here for 6 months to go and white wash train. She's going to be amazing but I will miss her tons. No training or follow-up training for me. I will be getting a new sister, Sister Som (sp?), who has been out for 2 transfers (just one less than me) and just finished her training and who is from Cambodia. President Jordan says she has pretty good English but I will have to help her learn more. I didn't really expect I'd have so many opportunities to help my companions with the language. I am a bit nervous to take over the area and being in charge of everything. I just pray that I can stay organized enough to make sure we do everything we need to, but I know the Lord will help me. It was interesting because yesterday morning we had flat checks. Elder and Sister Sill (the senior couple serving in Canterbury) came to check our flat and Sister Greenfield asked Elder Sill for a blessing because she was feeling nervous. He offerred to give me one too. I am so grateful for the Priesthood being restored. Blessings are so wonderful. It was interesting because he mentioned in mine that I would be a great strength to the members... well, this week at ward council it was devestating; so many of the strong members are suddenly falling away.. I mean, A LOT of them. After the blessing, Sister Greenfield said she figured I would stay here because the members here really need strengthening. I guess she was right and I really hope that I can help to strengthen the ward. So Robert, I will still have the same apartment address for the next 6 weeks atleast :)

Shayla is amazing! She is progressing so well, especially for coming from an agnostic background. We taught her Word of Wisdom our third lesson with her. We had gone to a cafe to meet and she had ordered coffee. We had just had a training that day in district meeting about how we needed to do better to help our investigators prepare for baptism by teaching them commandments early on, especially when we know they will have to make changes. We had planned to teach her Law of Chastity to start working on teaching commandments within the first three lessons and I just really felt that we need to teach her Word of Wisdom as well. So we went for it. And she said that she had a feeling that we were going to tell her that she had to give up coffee and then a few weeks ago she was actually thinking that she needed to cut down anyway. She said she would live it and then she didn't drink any more of the cup of coffee she had in front of her. She is so prepared! She came to church for the first time on Sunday. I think it went well. I thought Sister Greenfield might murder our Ward Mission Leader though because instead of teaching gospel principles, he said he thought Shayla should just go into the YSA sunday school class (I think because that's just where he wanted to go and didn't want to teach a lesson-- but I shouldn't judge). So we went with her there and the lesson was on celestial marriage. Celestial Marriage is great and wonderful and such a wonderful thing that we are able to have because of the restored gospel, but it was way too much for someone who was there for their first time to any church ever. Shayla felt really overwhelmed after that and I think she felt out of place because it was all from the Doctrine and Covenants, and then Sacrament Meeting was all about Temple work and baptisms for the dead. She said she had read a bit on mormon.org about that already so she wasn't too confused, thankfully. And maybe it was something that she needed to hear. Then we went to show her the baptismal font... there were tons of dead bugs in it and a huge spider!! Wow, talk about opposition and definitely not the kind I would have expected, but I think she handled it ok and after church she said that it helped her feel even better about her decision to be baptized. I know that the Lord is in charge and that if Shayla is truly prepared then the Lord will help her to get there regardless of confusing sunday school lessons and bug-infested fonts. She really is so amazing!

Some funny things from this week: part of our area is strood and we were catching a train there to help a member (the crazy, can of beans lady- Sister Hankin) clean her house (she's a hoarder and let me tell you I went into my organizing mode and just wanted to throw everything out, but Sister Hankin wouldn't let me), well we caught the wrong train and it didn't stop in Strood so we ended up going out of our area and having to back track and switch trains a few times but eventually we got to Sister Hankins (just a little late). It went well and then Sister Hankin gave us 4 referrals!! One was her neighbor so we stop by after the Hankins. At first the lady's son answered the door and was asking us all of these questions to try and trip us up and the Lady, Tracy, was just  laughing and not interested. Well, we somehow were able to get in and show them the Restoration DVD and then we had an amazing conversation and the spirit was really there. Tracy even commented about how there was a different feel in her house and asked us to come back. Then we found out that the Hankins and her are in a fued because the Hankins called the police on Tracy because she parked in their disabled parking spot. To think Sister Hankin referred us to her neighbor that she was fighting with... and to think her neighbor let us in and asked us to come back! The Lord works in mysterious ways.

This week we saw a snake! (No, I didn't try and catch it)

We started teaching a Chinese lady. She seems really good, but it sure is difficult to teach people who don't speak very much English.

 

The work is going great and hopefully will continue to go well!! I'm going to miss Sister Greenfield so very much but I am looking forward to the wonderful experiences I will be able to have with the new sister.

I am so grateful for the Atonement of Jesus Christ and all that is possible because of it. And I am grateful that the church was restored through a prophet so that we can have access to the blessings of eternal life.

 

I love you!!

Love,

Sister Davis

 

"Men captained by Christ will be consumed in Christ... they set fire in others because they are on fire. Their will is swallowed up in His will. They do always those things that please the Lord. Not only would they die for the Lord, but more important they want to live for Him. Enter their homes, and the pictures on their walls, the books on their shelves, the music in the air, their words and acts reveal them as Christians. They stand as witnesses of God at all times, and in all things, and in all places." -Ezra Taft Benson

Oh What a Beautiful Morning!

Dearest Family,

The weather has been much better this week, but I am trying to enjoy the heat because I know that soon I will be complaining of the cold (but when it is cold, I bought some delicious dark hot chocolate! )

Our ward finally watched some of the broadcast (S. Greenfield and I watched all of it last pday. So good!!!) HOpefully it will get our ward more motivated to share the gospel with their friends. IT's so true that our efforts as missionaries are meager without the help of the ward. We have kind of seen that this week. So much of our ward is on holiday (vacation) or going to se ethe British pageant that we have very few feeding us(don't worry, we feed ourselves fine) and few member lessons, no one teaching with us, etc. And I honestly think it is showing in the success of the work, but we press on and have seen the Lord blessing us for our efforts. WE found an amazingly prepared girl in her 20's, Shayla. She is amazing. She has no religious background but said that recently she really has wanted to build faith in God. She was asking what all she can do to build a relationship with god, what commandments she needs to keep, and what things she should be doing between appointments!! Amazing! We just pray that she will overcome the opposition that may come!

The very austere couple, Reginald and Kitty, dropped us this week. It was very sad because we could tell that Reginald knew that what we were sharing is really good, but he claims he is too old to change his views. One day. Maybe not in this life, but I know he will accept the gospel. They were so nice about dropping us though. They gave us a very nice donation for the church and gave us presents! A big box of ferrero chocolates!!!! Wow! Don't worry I'll enjoy some for all of you! And Sister Greenfield decided this week that she's giving up chocolate for the rest of her mission (crazy, I couldn't do it), but so she gave me the rest of her box as well! I may get fat from all that chocolate, but I couldn't let it go to waste.

However, even when people don't make it to baptism or choose not to learn more, I still love seeing how much their hearts have softened just from the little time we have spent with them. The spirit really does work on people and change them.

Yesterday while we were tracting, SIster Greenfield started asking me about spiritual experiences I had had. It was so wonderful to share with eachother all these wonderful experiences. It really helped me to be more enthusiastic, even when many people turned us away. And it made me so thankful for all of you, especially Mom and Dad. Thank you for raising me in the gospel and thank you for creating so many opportunities for me to learn and feel the spirit!

The longer I am out here (can you believe it's been 4 months?!) the more I LOVE the Book of Mormon. I loved it before, but I love it even more now! I am going through and marking every reference to Jesus Christ (Mom, I think you said you just finished doing this, right?). It's amazing! The Book of Mormon truly does testify of Christ and it really is written for our day! I'm so grateful that Joseph Smith knelt down and prayed and asked God which church was true and that he had enough faith and obedience to be called as the prophet of the restoration. I'm grateful for the priesthood that was able to be restored to the earth and the wonderful blessings that come as we can make sacred covenants with our Father in Heaven. I know this gospel is true, that this is Christ's church on the earth, and that as we apply the gospel in our lives we can have immense JOY!

I love you all so very much!!!!

Love, Sister Davis

How Sweet (Sweat) the Work

Dear Family!

The work is very sweet, but we also have been sweating a lot because of how hot it is. :) (Couldn't help it, Dad. Love you lots and thanks for taking the time and energy to write. ;))

You are all wonderful and I am happy to hear how brilliant things are going. The Peruvian party sounds especially nice!

Also, I will report that Kate has had the royal baby(which I know you are already aware of :)) and leading up to the announcement almost every house we went to had the news on waiting to see it or staying tuned to hear details about it. Other than that we haven't heard much else.

Going on a mission definitely hasn't taken the optometric technician out of me. Half the time when we stop people and talk to them or even with members of the ward, I often notice how much their glasses need adjusting or how much they really should have gone with something different. haha. I should probably work to stop doing that.

We have had quite the weather here. Mostly it's been really hot and humid (NOT ENOYABLE AT ALL). I hate humidity. But then the other day we went tracting and it started raining buckets. WEll, because it has been so hot lately and because we are missionaries with no access to weather reports we were caught in it with no umbrella and we got completely soaked! It was actually quite fun and atleast it was a warmer rain so we weren't cold at all and we didn't get sick from it (so don't panic). We also had a ward BBQ on Saturday and it started raining buckets during that as well so our bishop and the other bbqers were soaked, but the food was still delicious!

Sister Greenfield and I have worked so hard this week! We have just always been on the go. We had over 50 accountable  hours this week (which seems impossible), but somehow it really did happen. It was a little bit exhausting though, ok really exhausting. Thankfully the Lord gives us the strength to carry on. 

We started teaching a wonderful Latvian  lady who has an 18 month old daughter. They are great. Her lessons are a bit difficult though because she doesn't have the best understanding of English and we don't have many Latvian materials (just a BoM and FTSOY pamphlet). We were able to find the Latvian version of the restoration video online thankfully and could show her that. I think that is one of the hardest things about serving in such a diverse area is that so many don't have the best English so we REALLY have to simplify things and often repeat things different ways several times before it's understood. We also met several Romanian people this week :) One was going to come to church but he got the right bus number going the wrong way so he ended up not getting to where he needed to be and just went home. That was sad; next time we are going to have the Elders get the bus with him so he can find it.  

So sad news. We were just taking our break between finishing emails (we only have an hour at the library so then we have to come back later for the extra half hour). While we were out we ran into Aiva, the Latvian investigator. She is moving to sittingbourne this week :(. That is in Gillingham 2nd Ward area (we are G1). Hopefully the Elders in that ward will take good care of her and help her to progress, but it's always hard and sad to pass people over. And that seems to keep happening to us. We have found several people this week from Maidstone, which is London South area. Atleast we can be part of their process in bringing them closer to Christ, even if we cannot see their progress. 

And we FINALLY got to start watching the broadcast. We got our ward mission leader to burn a dvd for us to watch. We've been watching little bits at lunch and dinner and if we have time after planning. It's amazing!! Our leaders are so wonderful and inspired!!

Also, this is random, but I didn't know if I told you they have Peanut Butter Kit Kats here. Do we have those in America? They are amazing! It's like my two favorite chocolate bars put into one! So good! Now they just need to make dark chocolate peanut butter kit kats. 

We met this awesome old couple this week. The gentleman is super austere. He dresses very smartly with a cravat and all. He's hilarious! We get on quite well with them and had a really good first lesson with them. Although, they talk FOREVER! I'm pretty sure we know all of Gillingham's history now. haha. But they are great! 

We met so many wonderful people this week! I'm excited and hopeful that many will progress. This is a wonderful work; it is the Lord's work and I'm so thankful to be a part of it.

I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!! 

Love, 

Sister Davis