Week 10 A New Companion / 26 Apr

Dear Family-

I think I will start by telling you a little about my companion. His name is Elder Heumos and he from Germany, believe it or not! He's not a Spanish Elder at all, like I thought he might be, from the name. He is certainly a very powerful missionary, and always obedient. All the English he learned was on his mission or in the England MTC, and yet he speaks amazingly good English. It is truly the gift of tongues at work. He's only been out for 7 1/2 months, and if you could hear him now you would think he has been speaking English for years. I am really enjoying our companionship, and we're already seeing some amazing miracles.

We prayed about a street to go knocking the very first day we were out in the mission field. At the 2nd door we knocked we met 2 people named Pete and Jason, who were ready to hear the gospel message. Pete is very quiet but he is accepting the gospel without question, like he already knew it was true. Jason, however, has lots of questions for us, and they're good questions but sometimes very challenging ones. Anyway, after talking to them on Thursday we invited them to church, and they both came! This is the first time on my mission I've had people come to church. We had amazing lessons and I was so happy to see them really participating and enjoying their experience at church. And besides them, we already have 3 people confirmed to come to church this next Sunday. Things are really starting to kick off, I can't believe the blessings that are coming so fast.

To be honest this week has gone by so fast I have no idea what else to say! It's all been a blur as we've been finding and talking to everyone on the streets, there's just never a moment when nothing is going on. I guess I'll mention that this transfer, unfortunately, is only a 5-week transfer, so it will go until the very end of May I believe. I'm not sure why they made this transfer only a 5 week one, but it helps out the year schedule somehow. I doubt that either of us will get moved, though, so if the work continues like it is right now I'll probably be staying with Elder Heumos for at least a few months.

On a side note, there's something I needed to mention but have forgotten to until now. My personal finance card (the First Tech card) doesn't work overseas. From what I can figure out from other missionaries, the account needs to have something special done to it so that it can be accessed overseas. If you could maybe ask the First Tech people what needs to be done so I can access personal finances, that would be great. It's not urgent that I need them but it's always nice to be prepared. Hopefully you're able to help with that.

Hopefully Brandon is feeling much better the next time I hear from you. Maybe some sunshine would help. Is it getting a little more cheerful over there? It's finally starting to warm up a little over here so that I don't have to wear my coat all the time. I'll try to take more pictures so I can have some more to send to you. My companion insists that I need to take pictures of everything, but I've never been much of a picture-taker. I'm sure you'll appreciate his influence on me.

I'll write next week and let you know how the church-gathering went. Take care until then, and let everyone know I'm happy to be here doing the Lord's work. Time is going way too fast.

Love,

Elder Alsop

Week 9 A Practical Joke / 20 Apr

Thomas played a practical joke on us this week.....he didn't catch me in it, but he fooled his Dad! He made us think he was being transferred and then as we scrolled down, he said "just kidding". Unfortunately, his Dad didn't scroll down enough and thought he sent us a cliffhanger of an e-mail!

We had a couple of birthdays in our family and it thrilled me to pieces that he remembered mine, even with being so busy with all he has to do. Our poor son is wanting some beef jerky, mainly to share with a British Elder who had some once and loved it, but it's apparently illegal to import beef products, so he will just have to do without. Our 12th Article of Faith says: "We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law." I didn't read anything in there about "sneaking and getting around the law".

We had many, many things we learned to do without while we lived in Israel, and we learned to do it without complaint. It was a wonderful trade off for such a great adventure!

Now to Thomas' words this week:

Dear Family,

First of all, happy birthday Conner! I'm sorry I missed saying it before, time flies so fast over here and we missionaries barely ever look at the actual date, only when we need to fill out forms, and even then it's just numbers. But that's no excuse. It's weird to think you'll be almost 16 when I get back.

And happy birthday Mom. I know you probably don't want to be reminded of your birthday, but I think it's something I should keep track of better. How is it the middle of April already? It doesn't even make sense.

Thanks for looking for those pens! I'm sure those other ones will be great, as long as I have plenty of them :) oh and I found out something weird - It's illegal to import any beef products into England. I'm not sure why, but it's a law. That includes beef jerky.... And any packages that customs discovers to contain beef products will be confiscated and all I will get is a notice of seizure. I couldn't believe that when I read it in the small print of the mission packaging guidelines. I'm not quite sure what to do about that.

I wouldn't send any music over yet. I want to wait until the new mission president comes in and see what happens to the music rule, if it changes or anything, and then I'll know what to do for music for the rest of my mission. I had no idea that Jeff Buckley wrote 'Hallelujah', that is so interesting.

This ash storm over the UK is starting to go away. I didn't know anything about it until 2 days ago when we were at a member's house and they told us about it. You're just so disconnected with the world when you're a missionary. I wish I had known about it earlier because my asthma has been bugging me even more for the last little while, but it's been under control, at least.

I hate to say it, but it's been a bit of a disappointing week here, as most of our investigators dropped us in various ways. Just a lot of finding, and looking for more people to teach. I wouldn't say it was all bad though. There were a few highlights here and there and I'll try to focus on those.

The guy I was talking about earlier named David, we haven't been able to get ahold of yet. He's been working a lot of extra shifts, trying to save up money so he can move out of his parent's house, I imagine. However, we've still been stopping by trying to see if he's there, and we've been talking to his dad quite a bit. He keeps saying he's not interested in our church, yet he's actually been reading David's Book of Mormon and has questions about it whenever we go over there. What's funny is he won't let us in or come to church, yet he still keeps reading it, as far as I know. I don't even know if David has had a chance to read it himself. I might have to leave another copy the next time we go over there.

Remember the Elder I was telling you about from South Africa, Elder Caine? Well we went on exchange last Wednesday, because his companion Elder Gentry is the district leader and he still needed to go on exchange with Elder Johnson during the transfer period. They live a ways away in South Shields, so when Elder Caine and I finally got to go finding and teaching, we had an amazing time. In the spare hour and a half we had to actually go knocking/finding, we found FOUR new investigators and taught four lessons. We just made sure we prayed to know where to go, and we actually skipped around town quite a bit, wherever we felt like we needed to go, and in every place we went it seemed like there was someone waiting for us to teach them. And right after we found each new investigator it felt like we should leave and go somewhere else so we did. I've never been more inspired as to know where to go on my entire mission, and both of us had only been out for 8 weeks. It was definitely something I'll never forget.

And guess what? Transfer calls were last night. You'll never guess where I'm going now....

...

...

....

..

..

Just kidding. I'm staying in Gateshead. But my companion is heading down to Sheffield, and my new companion's name is something like Elder Juemos. It sounds like a Spanish name so I'm going to spell it like that until I know how it's actually spelled. I don't know anything about him yet, but I'll be meeting him tomorrow night and we'll be companions for at least six weeks. I hope he speaks Spanish because I've been studying out of El Libro de Mormon for 1/2 hour every morning for the past 2 weeks and I'm getting the hang of a lot of Spanish already. There's a man from South America in our ward (I think he's from Argentina) and I've been practicing speaking with him and I can hold a good conversation with him already. Studying Spanish is something I need to do while I'm over here, I can't really explain why I feel I need to study it... it's just a feeling I have, like it will be important on my mission at a later time. I guess we'll see, won't we?

I think that sending emails is just fine, you don't need to send written letters too. I'll try and send letters as often as possible home, it's just actually remembering to send them is the hardest part. I haven't sent Amber's letter yet because somehow I lost her letter, and so I didn't have her address. But just today when we were cleaning up the flat for transfers, I found the letter under the shelves right next to table I use for studying. So just let her know that I'll be sending 2 letters in 1 to make up for not sending it before.

And I'm out of time for now. Let James know he's headed on the right track to something he'll never regret. Just keep going and don't worry about family or anything because there's nothing more important for you to be doing than this.

Alrighty, toodle-oo till next week. I'll tell you about my new companion and everything that's happened since.

Love,

Elder Alsop

Week 8 Chasing Investigators.....Literally!! / 12 Apr

We greatly enjoyed hearing from our son this past week. He always has such interesting things to say and such a way of writing that we eagerly devour each and every word. What a blessing it has been to our family to have our beloved son serving the Lord!

Here is his week in his own words:

Dear Family,

Life seems to move on over there quicker than seems possible. I wonder how many things will have changed by the time I get back? A Wal-Mart in our midst, very possibly a stake center, and I hear that over in mainland China things are shaping up for the country to be opened to missionaries soon. Or are they just rumours?

One thing I think needs to be added to the list of things to send is pens. More specfically, there is a pen which I brought with me which I absolutely love for writing everything. It doesn't smear, the ink lasts forever, and it writes very fine so I can cram a whole bunch of information into a little writing space (which I often have to do). The pen itself is called a Pilot G-2 05 and I can't find them anywhere over here and it's driving me insane. They have 07s but those write too big. It seems silly to ask, but I would love some of those pens whenever the next package gets sent, and plenty of ink refills if you can find them. These other pens are driving me crazy!

Anyhow, we had a good 50 hour week as far as accountability, and that doesn't include traveling (walking, bus). It was an exhausting week for sure. On Wednesday the Assistants to the President came up to our area and went on splits with us. One of the policies our mission president tries to implement is "talk to everyone" which is really hard, but the assistant I was with, Elder Sonntag, took it very seriously. He'd see someone walking down the other side of a busy street way down a hill, and he'd run off down the hill, and wait to cross the street and then hurry to talk to the unfortunate and thoroughly freaked-out person. I guess there's extremes in everything, even "obedience with exactness". I don't think I'd like to be an Assistant to the President, just for that reason. Scaring people by running after them (in a dark suit and coat, no less) doesn't seem very effective. Maybe it's just me.

However, we had amazing success when I was with Elder Sonntag, especially while knocking doors. He has a way of getting straight to the point and impressing upon people the importance of our message in a way that I haven't been able to achieve yet. Our area had been suffering, as far as numbers are concerned, and that seemed like the right boost our area needed at that exact time and I'm grateful for that. One person in particular seemed perfectly prepared to recieve our message. Funnily enough, he was coming at us down the other side of the street and I felt very impressed that I needed to talk to him right then, despite the fact that Elder Sonntag and I were talking to someone at a door. I walked down and greeted him and felt impressed to right away talk about how the gospel can lift us up in times of distress. I then explained about the Book of Mormon and how it came to be translated. He practically pulled the book out of my hands as he asked "can I have this to read please?" I said of course he could and set up an appointment with him to see how the reading and praying went. His name is David, and we're seeing him tonight at 7. Unfortunately because of his busy work schedule, we couldn't meet until tonight.

I'm sorry, this email seems short, but I've been working on uploading and sending pictures for the most part. I figure pictures are much better than words right now. Hopefully those sent okay.

I have to go and get some shopping done now, and my companion needs a haircut, so adios!

And good luck with the farm!

-Elder Alsop

Week 7 We Become Farmers! / 6 Apr

We had a few changes in our family this week! On Saturday, we headed to the local farm supply store and purchased some baby chicks. We bought a 25 lb. bag of chick starter which came with 5 free pullets (We think 3 Rhode Island Reds, plus an unknown solid black one and a solid yellow one). We also got 5 Rhode Island Red pullets, 5 Barred Rock pullets, and 10 Cornish Cross meat chickens. Brandon is in charge of the chickens, with Rudy (the dog) as an assistant. Rudy is a good sidekick, always wanting to go in and look at the chicks, just standing and observing. We told him they are "friends", which to him usually is another dog, but he seems to get the idea and hasn't even tried to pick one up. He just sniffs and watches, and it's a cute picture!

On Sunday, we lost one chick, a Barred Rock, which of course happened to be Brandon's favorite. He had named it Simonean. We came home from watching General Conference and having Easter dinner with our friends the Moes to find him dead. Poor Brandon was crying and crying. He was pretty sad and had a hard time falling asleep. He stayed home from school the next day to care for the rest of the chicks and to bury the dead one. The little free yellow one was being picked on the backside by some of the others, so we purchase some pine tar for her bottom and they seem to be leaving her alone now. Poor little thing!

We shared these stories with Thomas in an e-mail and he's surprised at the changes around here. He knew we planned on chickens and maybe pigs, but reality is one step up from talking about it! It's funny that he talks about overalls below, because I had threatened to purchase a pair of denim overalls for Tom.

When you read about his coat below, he is talking about one we purchased at CTR clothing. It's a unique coat, more of a system than a coat. It has a button-out fleece liner and a waterproof outer layer, each part can be worn separately or both together for very versatile layering.

Dear Farmer Family,

Sorry for the late email, apparently public libraries are closed on certain holidays? It was a "bank holiday" yesterday, whatever that means, but anyhow, we had to save emails for today instead.

It's so weird to think you're actually taking care of farm animals now. The next picture you send will have you all wearing bib overalls and straw hats, I'll bet anything. I laughed so hard when I saw Rudy in the that picture, I can picture him whining and looking at the chicks, wanting them to play with him, I'm sure. Everyone over here in England owns a dog, and they always like to come right up to me when we go into someone's house and whine to be petted. Somehow they can tell that I was a dog person. And so, as a result, my suit pants are always covered with dog hair that never comes off, which of course just makes me THAT much more interesting to the dogs I meet in the future. I think it's good that I got used to dogs before I left, especially allergy-wise or I would never survive here.

That coat has definitely kept me warm so far. When I first got into the field it was warming up a little but still raining a lot, so I took out the inner layer and just wore the raincoat part of it. Then a couple weeks ago it dropped to below freezing again but it wasn't raining, so I just wore the inner layer of the coat. The only part of my body I'm having trouble keeping warm are my hands! As missionaries, we're encouraged not to stick our hands in our pockets as it makes us appear too casual. But no gloves seem to work against the cold and incredible winds we get up North, so my companion and I are practically forced to do so. It's always a dread to have to write something down because then my hands have to go back out into the freezing cold and pull out my planner and pen and jot down whatever needs writing. It seems to be getting a little bit warmer now that the sun is out and about though, so I'm glad for that at least.

I got a very nice English coat just yesterday from a guy named Dwayne. First, a little background on Dwayne. He is definitely the nicest, most patient guy I have ever met. He was baptized almost a year ago, and ever since then the missionaries have been visiting him regularly, mainly just to keep him company. He is from India I believe and has heart and other health problems resulting from the poor quality of food he grew up with. He's unemployed but he does volunteer work at charity shops whenever possible, but his life has still been very lonely over the past few months and my heart just goes out to him. Dwayne has a very interesting hobby of collecting things (very expensive things) that he finds and buys very cheap at charity shops, which he then turns around and sells at a great profit. I honestly don't know how he does it, or where he finds all this stuff. I'm talking jewelry, statues, clothing, all kinds of stuff. He lives in this little apartment and it is just absolutely crammed with random stuff, some of it worth a couple thousand pounds each, and others are just cheap junk, but every single thing has a story behind it. You'd have to see his apartment with your own eyes, and you'd laugh, I'm sure. But he is always giving away things to clear out his apartment (so he can buy more things) and he gave me a really nice double-breasted English coat just last night. It's definitely something I'll keep for the rest of my mission. Of course it's not going to do anything about the rain, but I'll probably wear it during the cold, dry months I hear are common here.

A nice quote from Dwayne last night, stated very humbly: "I am so full of patience, I could fill a whole hospital!"

I didn't get it at first, but when I did, I wrote it down, because Dwayne is definitely someone I want to remember for the rest of my life. I'll try and get a picture of him to send when I finally remember to bring my camera to the library.

General conference was an interesting experience. We had 3 people confirmed to go but all of them disappointed us, which was really too bad because we missed most of the Saturday morning session because of that. I was able to catch a couple of those talks though.

In total, I was able to watch half of the Saturday morning session, most of the priesthood session and all the Sunday morning session. I can't wait for General Conference to come out on CD so I can listen to it. It's funny how I used to dread General Conference as a kid... after all, it's just a bunch of old people talking for 10 hours. But now, it's actually something I look forward to and try to remember everything that is said. There was a great talk on patience somewhere in there that I still can't get out of my head. It's hard to be patient with everyone, every day, especially with myself, but we just have to remember that life is not a race to the finish, it's a battle of endurance.

Anyway, last week was a week to remember for me. We scheduled a woman named Elisabeth for baptism on the22nd of April. She's studying to be a doctor and she is absolutely amazing as to what she knows about the Bible, and just about religion in general. She's lived in Israel and she speaks about as much Hebrew as I do, which was an amazing coincidence in itself. But the very first time we visited her, she asked if our church knew anything about the order of Melchizedek. Elder Seletos (I was on splits at the time), who had been on his mission for 19 months, was blown away by what she knew the Church of Christ should have. She's been reading and praying and it's incredible how much she already understands about our church because it's what she's been looking for for a long time. The only doctrinal problems she had were the Spirit World and the 3 Kingdoms of Glory because it doesn't really speak much about those in the Bible, but we showed her where it does in Peter and ever since then she's been an amazing investigator. I'm excited.

Anyway, let everyone know I'm doing fine and enjoying the work. I can't believe that transfer calls are next week... everything is going unbelievably fast.

Good luck with the farm!

Love, Elder Alsop

Week 6, Serving Diligently / 29 Mar

We're trying to write to Thomas as a family each Family Home Evening. We've been pretty good to date. I expect he will receive them in spurts since they are all being sent to the mission home rather than his address where he lives. I think this is a good plan, because missionaries move so often that they would have constant mail forwarding problems. I'm sure it also lets them see who is getting regular mail and who is not. Support from friends and family at home is so important!

Dearest Family-

So you're making the property into a bit of a farm, I see. I can't imagine how different it's going to look when I get back. You should send some pictures when everything is finished. Also, are you able to send a little photo "scrapbook" we were talking about before I left? It would be great to have pictures of everyone, and maybe a couple photos of Grant. I feel like if I don't have pictures I'll completely forget what everyone looked like.

My asthma is really kicking up now that allergy season has started. It's in control, despite all the walking, but it's good to be sure of things like that. In England though, they have free healthcare to anyone who has lived here for over 2 months (legally). So before too long, I believe I can apply for that as a missionary. I'll let you know how that goes, and how it works, when I've been here long enough.

So... this week has been busy. We had zone conference on Tuesday, which meant we had to take a bus all the way back down to Leeds, a good 2 hour trip. There were some really uplifting talks given, especially Sister Stock's, which really focused on developing Christlike attributes ourselves. There was a strange moment later though, when President Stock quoted D&C 93... more specifically, the exact verses that I wanted to put on my mission plaque before I left! It was so strange because the only time I've ever heard those verses talked about was in our mission preparation class in Sunday school. I took notes from the zone conference and it's helped me when I'm a little down, to look at them and remember what was said.

It's been easy to get a little dragged down this week. Almost all of our investigators decided to drop us or just aren't answering phone calls/door knocks. We found a couple new investigators and we're meeting again with them this week. But for the most part it's been hour after hour of knocking and street contacting, with not many lessons being taught.

Despite all this, I really feel myself being strengthened as I continue to find those people that the Lord has prepared. I'm sure Dad knows how it feels to go through all that, and maybe everyone has those feelings sometimes in their life. It's important, I've realized, to just keep moving on no matter what happens and to trust in the Lord that he has the best intentions for us. God isn't someone that would lead us deliberately through difficult circumstances without a divine purpose for it. The refiner's fire is truly at work out here. You can tell those missionaries that have been out a long time, yet continue to progress, because their strength and faith is visible to all those around them. My original goal was to come off my mission a better person, having helped people to a better way of living, but if I were to come home right now I would have already acheived that! And so, it's important that as we progress, we continue to set brand new goals that stretch us and cause us to make greater and greater leaps in faith as we trust the Lord.

Incidentally, one of my goals is to read and understand the Book of Mormon in Spanish, in its entirety, by the time I return home. I don't have much free time at night, but when I do, I devote it to reading El Libro de Mormon and looking up new words when I don't understand them. It's more of a fun goal than anything else, but who said having fun is wrong? :)

One of our investigators is 28 and he's into the same kind of music that I am, except he really appreciates the basics of music a little more than I did. I told him I can't really talk about or listen to much music, but he recommended that if I like Muse's singer (which I do) then I should listen to Jeff Buckley, who I guess is a guy with incredible range and a pitch-perfect voice who only came out with one album before he died. Since he's just a singer, I'm wondering if his music might be considered "uplifting" and I was hoping you could check it out for me. Right now we're only allowed to listen to MoTab (sigh), which is a rule that apparently not many mission presidents decide on, so if in July when we get a new mission president, if he changes the rules for music I want to be prepared. Don't get me wrong, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir is nice, but there comes a point where beating your head on the table is considerably more "uplifting" than listening to the same 2 CDs over and over when your companion (and trainer) absolutely loves them. I am eagerly looking forward to the day when something else can be considered appropriate music.

As for letters, I have only received 2 sets of letters from the family thus far, the ones right after I left, and the ones in the package. Last week I also received a letter from Amber and one from Alisa (which is strange because Amber's letter is way older) and so just let them know, if they ask, that I'm writing back today.

Looks like I'm out of time again. I'm going to work on taking some pictures to send, because right now I was looking through my camera and they are all MTC pictures, I haven't taken hardly any at all since I've been out in the field. Good luck, and stay safe.

Love,

Elder Alsop

Week 5, Our First Parcel Reaches Thomas! / 22 Mar

We sent Thomas a package shortly after he left the US. We finally got word on March 22 that he received it. We packed it full of goodies including Easter treats and a scarf I had knitted using yarn made of a blend of llama and silk fibers. For those who don't know, Thomas is a llama nut. He even took a stuffed llama with him on his mission to stand sentry over his door! I'm currently knitting his llama a little blue scarf made from alpaca fiber. LOL

Greetings from England,

I got the package in the mail last Tuesday. I was really excited when I saw everything that was in there, I wasn't expecting that much. It should definitely last a while, even with other missionaries taking a lot of it (but I've hidden the Gardettos from everyone). One thing that would be awesome to send in the future is some good American peanut butter- Nobody eats that over here! I was looking around in this big grocery store just after I emailed you last Monday and all they had was some weird brand of peanut butter I've never heard of and, to be honest, it tastes terrible. I was very surprised that no one eats peanut butter over here, it's practically one of the things I lived off of in the US. Other than that, I can't think of anything else that you could send. The package was wonderful. Thank you so much for sending it!

Oh wait, one of our Zone Leaders wanted me to get beef jerky for him. He's from England and he's only ever had beef jerky once in his life, and he loved it. So if you could send some beef jerky that's something I think I could share with everyone over here.

So as far as the mission goes, it's been a lot of knocking and street contacting. Hours and hours of it. We have a few investigator's we're working with, but over the past week most of them have been out of town for one reason or another, and so we've been out of luck trying to find more people to teach. The people here are generally very solid in their own religions, which is sad because if they could only realize the impact that our message would have on their lives, I feel like they would be some of the strongest members of the Church I've ever seen. When we do find someone who will listen to us, it's an amazing experience though. You can truly see their countenance changing as we teach them and they really understand the meaning of life, and living. My favorite lesson to teach is the Plan of Salvation, which other missionaries think is strange because they all like teaching about The Restoration. But the Plan of Salvation means a lot to me personally, and as much as I love Joseph Smith and what he did for us, I just love the true measure of the plan that our Heavenly Father laid out for us even more. I can feel the Spirit really strong when I am able to testify of the truthfullness of that plan, and how important it is that we live our lives in a way that allows us to return to live with God, and see all the people that we have lost, and know that we followed the right path to our best ability.

Lately I've been reading out of 3 Nephi a lot, and every time I read over a passage again and again, it seems to gain more meaning, and not just meaning, but feeling somehow. I can almost feel the immense joy that the people must have felt when they realized the Christ had indeed appeared to them, that He had indeed sacrificed Himself for them. Without doubt, my favourite part of the entire Book of Mormon is when Christ is about to leave the Nephites to return to Heavenly Father, but then He looks upon the multitude and sees that they wish Him to stay but a little longer, and is so moved by their love for Him that He says He is filled with compassion towards them, and then proceeds to heal their sick and afflicted. Just that one little part though, where they don't say anything at all; it's just the look in their eyes, which I'm sure are full of tears, when they realize that Christ is going to leave them, and they want him to stay just a bit longer, just a little longer...

Boy, getting emotional in an email is not Kosher. Don't worry! I am very happy in what I am doing. I know it's what the Lord wants and even if it's a little tough sometimes, the change that I can make in people's lives makes all the difference in the world.

Well it looks like it's time to go, we are meeting as a larger group of missionaries at the local Newcastle chapel to play some football (soccer) or something like that. I wish you all luck, in whatver new things are going on over there, and hopefully by this time next week I have something a little but more than knocking all day to report!

Love,

Elder Alsop