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
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