Dear Family,
I'll just start off by mentioning some of the things that I tend to eat a lot in England. First of all, pretty much every meal that involves potatoes is swimming in a thin gravy sauce. There's something that the English call "hotpot" which, if you look it up, usually consists of meat mince, roasted potatoes, and various vegetables, all covered in gravy. That's the most common thing I eat. Crumpets I have eaten many times. They are delicious. Probably the closest thing I can compare them to is a very soft, very thick English muffin. They have many holes throughout them, so that if you spread them with jam or butter, it goes down inside and just helps with the flavour. If you can find any of them in America you might want to try some, they are really good.
Also, there are chippies everywhere. Basically just Fish&Chip shops. There are takeaway places everywhere that sell everything from pizzas, to burgers, to fried chicken, to kebabs.
Now let me explain what kebabs are. First of all, they are gross. Second of all, they're pretty much shwarma from Israel, except they only give you a wimpy little pita bread. The meat itself is called "donner" and comes from many animals. I think they just mould it around one of those poles that rotates around slowly so that it all gets cooked. The only thing is, nobody buys kebabs, so the meat sticks are always dry and look like they've been there for days.
When a new missionary comes into the field, it is tradition for his trainer to "kebabtise" him. This ensures that the new missionary will not make the mistake of ordering a kebab again. I certainly won't.
Down to business now. We have two investigators scheduled for baptism. Unfortunately, only one of them (Maria) was able to make it to church yesterday, but they are both looking good for their dates. One of them might be baptised this very Sunday if she feels ready. You'll find out next week what happens :)
Maria loves having the missionaries over. We repaired her bike so she doesn't have to walk around Beverly anymore. We have had plenty of experience with bike fixing. She also suffers from a form of depression, so she is always happy to see the missionaries any whoever else we bring along. We practically had to drag her to church on Sunday because she wasn't feeling up to it. Once we promised she would feel better at church, she finally agreed to come, and that promise was fulfilled and she told us afterwards how grateful she was for the missionaries forcing her to come. She's funny that way.
By the way, all of this happening is Beverly is something no one expected. Beverly hasn't been doing anything for such a long time and it's gained a reputation. Having two scheduled investigators is a miracle and it's really motivating our entire zone. The Hull zone itself has a bit of a reputation of being a hard zone for missionary work. It's the smallest zone in the mission, having only 7 sets of elders, and no sister missionaries, despite its immense proselyting area. We really are being blessed right now.
It's almost August, that's crazy. All the kids are out of school now for 6 weeks, so it should be a fun time for heckles from the chav kids. More next week.
Love,
Elder Alsop
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