ok so this was the transfers week/ sorry i didnt tell you last week but this is why im emailing a day late. so new from the transfer.... no one is moving!!!!! im so fecking happy about it! then next transfer will only be a five week transfer but still that is five more weeks with the best missionary in the mission in the best area in the mission. also the sisters in ilford will be staying together so we can carry out all of our planned pranks:) Dad im so sorry to hear about your week. i remmeber that hunting trip quite welll. i remember eing freezing and spending hours walking around in the snow following elk tracks into 'no hunt zones'. i also remember going home early for school then you going back out and getting an elk without me. Lance was a good man, the best men believe on the bible and hold to it firmly. as we are converted the Lord writes his law on the 'fleshy tables of (our) hearts' Any one who has the testimony of Christ and lived by it will be in good standing with HIm after this life. Speaking from my own experiences it is really sad to see people who believe that God no longer speaks to men. there is so much behind the statement in the book of mormon that describes Him as being the 'only true and living God' OH man!!! Gift just sneaked up behind me and scared the life out of me and i completly forgot where i was going with that... well just listen to the talk by Jeffery R. Holland 'The only true God and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent' then follow it up by watching 'My Words Never Cease' by the same apostle and you will get what i was saying.
Ok Awesome week! I did not have a birthday half as cool as dads birthday on his mission, but it was good. i spent the day in Romford on a workover with the district leaders junior companion. Elder Barber came form Dublin just about three months ago and is one of the coolest missionaries ever! the day in Romford was so cool i had a great time with him. unfortunatly they have no one to teach over there so we spent the day street contacting which was good cause almost every one that we found that was interested in the gospel lives in Ilford! we'll be seeing them tomorrow so we will get to see if my birthday presents were good or not. When i got back to Ilford i found a letter with two birthday cards in it which just caped off the day thank you Thompsons your timing is impecable. Sister Andersen and Sister Larsson bought me some cookies but other then that i didnt get anything special to eat mostly beacuse we are broke... i have £2 to last the rest of Feburary which i cant even withdraw because it is less then £10. But im not complaning because we have plenty of pasta in the flat and im getting flipping good at making pasta. even better then the Itallians!... well i think so at least.
i had an interview with President Patch this week and we had a great chat about putting off the natural man and the contast between the nature of our spirits and the physical body. it really helped put things in pespective for me esspecially when i was reading in Romans 8 about walking after the Spirit. then i read a really cool quote from Richard G. Scott this morning which goes 'we become what we want to be by consistently being what we want to become each day.' so i spent my whole personal study reviewing and thinking about what i want to become and decideing what im consistently going to do each day to be just that. it was really intresting. i would invite everyone to just take a couple of moments and think about that for themselves.
ok so last week poor Hubert was put through the refiners fire and i wanted to rip my face off during church but we saw him yesterday and he is doing totally awesome. But this week was an exteme contrast to last week. in sacrement meeting Gift gave a powerful talk which he talked about his conversion story and how he was baptised on the 16th of January. the Elder Scruggs gave a General Authority like talk about member missionary work that rocked the ward and melted faces then for gospel principle Gift was again the man of the hour when he taught a spot-on lesson (just had a little hiccup up when an visitor rebuked me for thanking th Lord for the Sabbath Day which he claimed to be the day before). Im so excited about how well things are going in the ward right now with our recent converts.
Except one. Three months back we baptised a man with a few mental disabilites who loves to blame people for his problems. he got offended and cause some major drama. in the mist of it all he gave his bank card to one of the other recent converts and she went shopping mad on it. now he is determined to sue the church and disgrace its name in the local papers... maybe not local, all the papers for London so that is a bit frustrating but never-the-less and not withstanding this the work will go on.
Preston holy cow i have never seen the shop [at work] look like that. except for when i used to clean it ;) that is so crazy that everything has been moved to the Chandler office. i bet Mike was smoking 100 'fags' a day during that whole proccess. Funny story. i was really missin working there this morning and i found my secret stash of golf balls so i took them and sneaked into the bathroom and while elder scruggs was showering i threw them all at him! it was so refeshing to hear the bounce of a golf ball and a grown man scream again. it was like music to my ears.
well the work progesses. we are plannin on haveing a baptism this weekend. Florent David is from Guinea in Africa and did not take long to gain a testimony of the divinity of the Book of Mormon. the peace that he felt as he came to church and the spirit he felt as we taught him about the restoration lead to his conversion to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Currnetly he is being sponsored by his catholic chruch back in Guinea to learn english here so he can come back and teach it. Being baptised will mean losing that sponsorship and being rejected by his family. But he knows that it is true and is absolutly determined to serve and follow the Lord. Im excited to see what miracles are going to happen because of his faith.
continue to pray for me and know that you are all im my prayers
love
Elder Solomon
