Baptism! Woot Woot!

Hey everyone, as you can tell by the title, Isabel was baptized! It was legit. Very stressful day at church though! I basically was running around trying to organize everything while Elder Fairbourn was just like, "uhh... what..." Haha! Dang noobie missionaries. but everything turned out alright.

 

Well let's see what else happened this week... Oh yeah, we basically almost got mugged by a bunch of 12-15 year old kids! Apparently, Lewisham is like the most ghetto part of all London. I didn't realize until the other day when a bunch fo these kids were chasing us on bikes and throwing water balloons at us.. we got away, tried seeing a few other people, and when walking back (a different way) those same kids found us! And they chased us again! But this time they cornered us, so I was like "Oh dang. oh dang. these kids are gonna attack us!" so i just wasn't thinking and pushed one of the kids off the bike! And the kids got really freaked out and started cussing, and a bus came just in time and we jumped on it and bookied it out of there! We were alright in the end. It was a hilarious experience though! HAHA!

 

Well yeah the other thing is that we're working with a lot of other people to be baptized. For instance, a woman Andrea and her son Marcus, I probably wrote about them before. I'll get pictures tonight because we're having a dinner appointment with them. Anyways, they're awesome. And I can see them being baptized. That's a family baptism right there! I'm so blessed to be here in Catford.

 

Well anyways, my time is running out. love you guys, thank you for the e-mails!

 

-Elder Blumenthal

 

Alma 7:14-15

First Week of Training!

Hello everyone! So this obviously was my first week with Elder Fairbourn, my "son"! It was awesome. Elder Fairbourn is a really great guy, very humble and willing to work. He seems to have some homesickness though, something we all struggle with when we first come out on our missions. Despite that he's gotten accustomed to the "english life" in London and I think he's going to be okay.

 

Okay well what happened this week... Where do I begin!!!

 

So after I found out I was training we went and saw Isabel, and we were like, "Hey, let's go to the temple." HAHA! So we just went! It was hilarious. I love being in London and just taking a train to anyhwere I want.

 

So yeah we went to the temple, great place.

 

Then we had transfers day, we all met at Staines. Elder Wainwright, my trainer, is also training! So i got to see him after not seeing him for like... 9 months! He's nuts. It was really funny.

 

Okay so we got back into Catford and we immediately started working. And we had some crazy cool experiences! Elder Fairbourn and I had 6 people at church on Sunday! Probably more than, like... anyone, ever. Just kidding. but seriously it was awesome. We met a guy on the street named Will who was Spanish (from Dominican republic really) and had his whole family apart of the church. But he never got baptized but he was looking for us to come to church! So when he came to church it was awesome, but even more awesome is he brought his friend Santo! HAHA! It was legit.

 

Alright well anyways we experienced loads of miracles this week but I feel like the work needs to still be hastened. I've been really struggling (especialyl lately) with just HOW MUCH is on my plate I feel... But even harder is my memory is rubbish and I never get to doing all the things I wanted! So I've been specifically praying and working on managing my time wisely, not getting distracted and not forgetting about ANY appointments/people to call/lessons to teach.

 

Okay well anyways, I forget what else... Isabel is set for baptism on the 28th of July. i don't feel like I talked much about Isabel. Basically she was found about a year ago by missionaries (maybe a bit longer) and she's always been really solid, but she wasn't allowed to be baptized (she was 17 at the time)m so the missionaries just sort of forgot about her... DUMB!!! So what happened was Elder Tikoicina and I visited her, and started to teach her agian, and now she's proper set and everything for the 28th of July to be baptized. Even better, her family is backing her up 100% this time. Even better-er, is she told us just on Sunday that her testimony is SO much stronger than she thought when she originally wanted to be baptized. So basically, yeah, she's awesome. I have some pics of us at the temple attached.

 

Okay and the other thing was that Jordan came to church, a guy who is about 20 years old I think? Really cool guy, he's very humble but has a hard time believing in God, but definitely WANTS to find out if he's there. As it says in the scriptures, if you so much as desire, work on that, then everything will fall into place. He's really cool, I can see him joining the church in the near future as well.

 

Well that's al folks. Thanks for the e-mails. sorry if I haven't replied to any, I got like 15 e-mails this week! Woohoo!

 

-Elder Blumenthal

It's A BOY!!!

Hey everyone, how are you all!!! This week was pretty great, let me tell you why.

 

Well basically, our area is on fire, we're so blessed. we have so many great people we're teaching, all who are preparing for baptism (though only 1 has a date). Elder Tikoicina and I definitely spent our last week together working hard.

 

That's right, our last week together. We got leadership calls last night on Sunday (while eating dinner at a members' haha!!) and President Millar called me to train! YES!!! I'm proper excited. A bit nervous as well though!!! I'm really praying and trying to be on my best behaviour and attitude for my "son" because I'm going to have the biggest impact on how he does missionary work in the future. Always have to remember that we're constantly being watched by others and the Lord, so be a good example!!!

 

Okay so anyways, yeah, I'm proper excited. Today isn't our P-day so after this I'm going to go eat lunch and "hit the streets!" but I seriously am just fidgeting in my seat thinking about training, its going to be awesome! I really hope the missionary I train will be cool. I bet he will though. I'm going to learn lots form him.

 

Also kind of scary though! I'm taking over the area of Catford only after being here for 6 weeks. Wish me luckj everyone, and pray that things go well here and the momentum keeps picking up. We taught 21 lessons last week which was great!!!

 

Alright well I don't remember the other news. But yeah! Apparently Elder Wainwright is training again as well!!! So I'll see him on Wednesday at the staines chapel. After serving with a lot of other companions I realized, yeah he was hard on me but he's a really good missionary, and I'm glad to have served with him. Being a misisonary is seirously the exact same as living a literal 2-year life, from birth to death. You're born (trained), go through your teenage years of being rebellious to your trainer, then after a while you realize your trainer knew what he was talking about, and that you start to follow his example and learn to pass that on to future elders in the mission. And thus the cycle repeats. Its hilariously awesome.

 

Okay well I have to go, enjoy the pictures! There was a baptism (not ours) at the Catford chapel for the Welling ward, so I got to see all the elders in Welling! Elder Patten! The beast! and Elder Mecham, the Las-vegasian who makes fun of me because I'm not "actually" from las vegas (but I tell everyone that I am) Haha! Oh well. Bless him

 

Anyways thank you for the e-mails everyone, love you and see you next week

 

-Elder blumenthal

Great Week Again!!! Food!!!

Hey all, how was your week?! my week was pretty grand. But at the same time, bland. I'll tell you why.

 

Well mom ordered like 50£ of groceries for me, and I was so excited for them... and they didn't show up. What the crap!!!! Oh my days, so mad. SO mad. I think the address got put down wrong because my street is really stupid. but does that mean someoen got 50£ of groceries for free? UGH. Anyways, I re-did it and told the fewls at Tesco's that they have to call me before anything!

 

By the way, Tesco's is the greatest. Its right by my house. its like Albertsons but in England. So basically the 4 main shops are Tesco's (albertsons), ASDA (Wal-mart), Sainsbury's (Smith's) and Morrison's (Uh... K-mart?)

The really really cheap generic stuff they sell is the greatest. Bargains!!!!

 

Anyways I'm going to send you all just a load of pictures from ages ago because my reader broke. but yeah, went to North London, loved it! Posh town! We also went to Big Ben for a P-day, that was great. I'll upload more next time but I'm out of time on the computer and the internet here sucks so it only uploads like 1 per hour.

 

thanks everyone for the e-mails, give everyone my regards!

 

-Skyler