A Sleepover Party!

Hi everyone!

Wow, it sounds like you have all had a crazy week! I can relate because this last week has been absolutely insane! England really is a global melting pot. We have met so many people from all over the world! China, Spain, Italy, Iceland, Brazil, Latvia, South Africa, etc. The weather here has been pretty glum. It rains about every day, but sometimes we get a really nice day too. My shoulder isn't too bad. Carrying around a backpack all day, every day that weighs about 15 pounds takes a toll on your body. If my shoulder starts to hurt I'll usually just take the backpack off for a few minutes, and we have a tube of muscle relaxing cream at the flat that I use. So it's not too bad, but if it does get worse then I will let someone know.

Well, this past week has been absolutely crazy with so much going on! They are going to put more missionaries in the area that Sister Ball and I currently work in. There are several towns outside of our main area that we don't get into very often, so the extra help will be appreciated. We have been working all week to help our zone leaders prepare for the arrival of the new elders. We have been helping them to furnish the flat and everything. Several days in a row, Sister Ball and I made the zone leaders some food since they were so busy that they never really had time to eat. One day they were both so tired when they showed up at our place to pick up another item, and we gave them some chicken sandwiches that we had made. We got a call from them about a half hour later and there was such a difference in them! They were so excited! They said that they loved the sandwiches that we made them, and if we were to go home early then we should open up a sandwich shop. Haha! They are such great elders. 

This week has been so busy and a little bit trying for me, because unfortunately I got sick. I have a nasty cold. I'm losing my voice, my throat hurts, etc. I am doing better now, but it was so hard to go out and work like this. But I did it anyway, and now I'm getting better. Funny story, so earlier this week Sister Ball and I were out knocking a street and I had the hiccups. Really bad hiccups! They were so loud, it was terrible! One lady opened her door and said that she didn't believe in God and at that moment I had a really loud hiccup right after she said that. After that, another lady opened her door and I couldn't stop the hiccups and she said, "You better put some water with that whiskey!" Oh my gosh, it was so embarrassing! But we just laughed because it was really funny!

You won't believe what Sister Ball and I did last night! You never get to do this on your mission, but we got to have a sleepover!  Last night our zone leaders had asked us to go to the flat for the new elders (they arrive today, so they weren't there yet), and set up everything. They bought some beds from IKEA that had to be put together, and stuff like that so we went out to the new flat and did that. (Flat=apartment) Unfortunately, it took us so long to do everything that it was 10:30 p.m. before we finished so we spent the night in the Elders' new flat! (No elders were there of course, it was just us) It was such a memorable experience. How many people can say they did that on their missions? Not many.

So not much else happened this week, but it was still a good week. Sister Ball and I have been extremely blessed! Just know everyone, that Heavenly Father does answer your prayers! We had a miracle on Sunday, because it was the last day to get our goal of 14 lessons, and we still had to get 5 lessons in order to reach that goal. All of our appointments cancelled, but we prayed, and Heavenly Father blessed us. We got our 5 lessons, which means that we met our goal again! Yay! Prayer works! And don't you forget it! I hope you all continue to have a good week, and I know that as long as you are faithful to the commandments, that Heavenly Father will bless you greatly! I pray for you all every day, and I know that Heavenly Father hears and answers our prayers! I wish you all the best this week! I love you guys so, so much!

Love,

Sister Connery

Howdy

Hi guys!

I'm glad to hear that things are going well at home. That's good that you're feeding the missionaries because the members here are very good about feeding us. I've been on my mission for 6 weeks now, and I've been in the field for a whole month already! I am becoming increasingly more comfortable here, especially when I teach. We taught 14 lessons this past week, which was our district goal, and I actually spoke up in the lessons and taught some principles. Unfortunately, the investigator with the daughter flogged (cancelled) on us so we didn't get to see her. The new missionaries have yet to arrive, but the transfer will end in a week and half so they will probably be here then. We are currently teaching an investigator from Africa who speaks several African languages, but he's lived in Spain with his family for a long time so he also speaks Spanish. His English isn't very good so teaching him is a challenge. We think that he understands English okay, but he just can't speak it very well. We have a brother in the ward who speaks Spanish so he comes to help us teach sometimes so that our investigator can understand things better. He came with us to stake conference yesterday, and he said that it was good and he enjoyed it! We hope to commit him to baptism this coming week. 

Sister Ball is letting me take the lead in lessons now, and I think I am doing an okay job. I still have so much to learn and to work on, but I am certainly trying very hard! We had to do evaluations this week. Sister Ball had to evaluate me, and I had to evaluate her. She said that she told President Millar that she recommends me to train someone as soon as I am done training! That's a scary thought because I still feel so new at this and that I have so much to learn. But I also know that Heavenly Father will help me with anything that I need. Later in the week we went to a less-active's house and helped make sushi. She makes them so they are not all fish, but she puts chicken, egg, ham, etc in them as well. So we got to try our hand at making sushi, and we didn't do too bad. I have decided that sushi is not my favorite thing to eat. It wasn't bad, but I don't think I like it. The seaweed doesn't taste very good, but it was a new and interesting experience. 

We have had to do a lot of walking this week because our bus passes expired and we haven't gotten new ones yet. It's good exercise though. I do have to admit that this week was physically rough for us. Carrying so much weight around is aggravating my shoulder, but you just gotta push through it and you will be blessed. Hopefully this next week will be better. We had Stake Conference this weekend and it was a broadcast to the whole UK from Salt Lake. President Eyring was presiding. (Poor President Monson! Please keep him and his family in your prayers at this time especially. If you haven't already heard, his wife passed away on Friday morning. So please pray for him.) The conference was good though. There were a lot of good speakers and great topics.
 

I hope you all have another great week! Remember to pray and read your scriptures every day! I love you guys so much! I miss you tons, but we will all be blessed from this! Remember this: I love you all!!!

Love,

Sister Connery

Happy Mother's Day

Hi everyone!

I know I just talked to you on the phone yesterday, but I still have so much to tell you about! I miss you guys a ton, but I am loving my mission! So P-Days are supposed to be our day to rest and take a load off. Since I got into the mission field, we have just been going and going all day long on P-Days! Last week we took a train to Reading for Sister Pallekonda's surprise birthday party (they told us about it at seven in the morning last Monday-so kinda short notice). But we had a blast! We finally got to wear trousers (pants)! I was in heaven! ;) The Elders' decided that for the party we were going to BBQ so they bought all of the stuff, but Sister Ball and I were the ones who prepared everything. And guess who was standing at the grill the entire time cooking all the food? Me. I'm not complaining because it was a lot of fun, but I was kinda tired after standing there cooking for 2 hours. But it was fun anyway. Last Tuesday we had zone conference, my first one and it was a lot of fun and very uplifting as well. The zone leaders called us the night before zone conference and asked Sister Ball and I to sing with them at zone conference the next day. We sang Redeemer of Israel (pg. 6 of the hymn book), and I had to do a SOLO! They had me sing the soprano part and Sister Ball sang the alto part. It was just us and two other elders' singing. I was really nervous but I did it, and apparently I didn't do too bad because I got a lot of praise afterwards. So it was a great experience. :)

We found a new investigator this week who seems pretty interested. She and her daughter were so nice to us! We gave them a Book of Mormon, and we have a return appointment for this week! We hope all goes well! :) This week was kind of a slow week after zone conference and everything, but it was still good. We have a progressing investigator and we hope that he will accept a baptismal date soon. Other than that, not much went on besides the usual teaching, which is still such a wonderful thing! I am so blessed to get the opportunity to serve the Lord! :)

I love and miss all of you and I can't wait to see what goes on during the next week in your lives! Have a wonderful week, and may Heavenly Father bless you and the Spirit guide you! Love you!

Love,

Sister Connery

Down and Dirty

Hi everyone!

I can't believe that I've hit the four-week mark already! It's crazy how fast time goes by! I am getting more and more comfortable here, especially in teaching. Sister Ball has been letting me take the lead on things which is good practice, and so far I think I'm doing okay. We gave one investigator a kind of ultimatum on her baptism date. She has been investigating the church for over a year now and still won't get baptized. She comes to church every Sunday, but she still has some fears. So hopefully, we can resolve those fears. We gave her the option to pick her own baptism date, but it has to be in the month of May. So we're seeing her tonight and we'll see how that goes. We've done a lot of service this week! We cleaned the chapel for an hour and half on Tuesday, and then on Friday we did some service for a less active. We didn't realize that we would be doing service for her until we got to her house. So we planted some plants in her garden. We got down and dirty in our skirts! lol. It was a lot of fun though. Then on Saturday we got to do some more service for another less active. We climbed in her attic (once again in our skirts) and hauled some boxes down for her.

The members here have been so welcoming to me! Bishop even asked me to sing in sacrament meeting. :/ I had no idea that I sang so loud. But I roped Sister Ball into it, so we're gonna sing a duet instead. haha! The members have been feeding us a lot which is good! Saturday night we got to go to our ward mission leader's house and have dinner with him, his wife, and their 5 kids. It was a lot of fun! :) A family in the ward, the Serewangas, fed us last night and afterwards Sister Ball and I felt so sick! They fed us sooooo much! It was so good, but it was a lot of food!

We finally found a new investigator this past week! She was so amazing and we were able to teach her one lesson and we had a return appointment. Unfortunately, she wanted to talk to her husband about taking the lessons from us before we met with her again (her husband is an atheist) She called us and said that she had to cancel our appointment with her because her husband said no and he was really angry about it. :( However, she said that she would talk to him about it again in a few weeks, and we are praying really hard for her!

I'm glad you're liking the pictures. Sorry I don't have any for you this week but hopefully I will take more and then send them to you next week. We are really tired a lot of the time, which is why we looked so beat at Christ Church. We do walk a lot! We sometimes take the bus and we actually get to ride a train once a week! So that's pretty interesting. I am writing in my journal, every night before bed. I'm glad I'm doing it because it's a good habit to get in. Anyway, it was a great week! I am learning so much from being here, and having the hour every morning for personal study is so great! I love reading the Book of Mormon, and it is so different from being at home and reading it. Here, I am actually able to focus on it and see things that I missed before. I love being a missionary! :)

I hope you all have a wonderful week! I love you all so much! I can't wait to hear about what you're doing this week! Love you guys!

Love,

Sister Connery