Hey Everyone!!!!!

Sorry about the lack of e-mails, I've been way forgetful about this stuff!!!

 

okay well here in Catford its been great. Elder Tikoicina and I taught 19 lessons this week, which is really good, and we have someone preparing for Baptism next month! Booyah!!!

 

We also jsut saw a woman named Andrea who is awesome!!! She's from jamaica and has a son. She's been coming to church for 2 weeks now before we even properly taught her any lessons! She's way cool, definitely a genuine person. She fed us on Sunday and we taught a powerful lesson about the Restoration of the Gospel and the Book of Mormon. She said that Heavenly Father has been giving her a "wake up call" recently and she thought she needed to start going back to church, and thats exactly when she met a member of the ward who had the courage to invite her to church. The Lord is preparing people for us to speak to, and its up to us to act on the impressions we feel. President Monson is an excellent example of always following promptings of the spirit, and we can see the miracles that have happened to him on countless ocassions because of his diligence. Anyways, I invite everyone of you to look out for missionary experiences, they'll really help the ward and the missionaries specifically! Maybe I just like to complain but we can do a LOT of hard work! and sometimes it doesn't prove very fruitful, and that's why its great to get members involved in things like this. Well, anyways, love you guys and thank you for all the e-mails!!!

 

-Elder Blumenthal

2nd Week at Catford

Hey everyone how are you?! So another week has flown by in my new area Catford. Its quite nice actually, I like London. Its really really busy though, so its fun to stop people on the street and have them yell at you. haha! oh bless

Anyways I don't have any time because we have a huge mission conference going on in North London!!1 Holy cow! Hyde park!!! Going to be SO cool. so we have to run and get to that. but yeah my SD card reader broke so I can't upload any photos, I'm furious!!!! Oh my gosh. Oh well. I tjust like fizzled up and exploded basically when I plugged it in. luckily the SD card is alright and I still have all my photo's. So anyways yeah I'm proper mad about that but whatever.

well I don't know what happened out of the ordinary this week, but it was pretty cool that we had Zone Training on Tuesday, President Millar is such a heavy hitter (like Glen Lerner!!) haha! Some lady has been basically creeping on missionaries here in London all around, and so he just goes "Elder Blumenthal, avoid this Karen lady like the plague. She just wants to join the church as a social club. If she calls you, rebuke her and tell her she needs to go to Senior couple missionaries if she's serious about being baptized." haha!  It was just so funny, he tells it how it is! I love President Millar he's such a great guy. You can really tell that his mission president was Bruce R. McConkie because its rubbed off on him! HAHA!

Anyways I have to get going and e-mail president, but thank you for the e-mails everoyne, I'll promise pictures next week. London rocks!!!

-Elder Blumenthal

Jacob 4:10

Moves!!!

Hey everyone, sorry I couldn't get to you earlier, but I got transferred! To Catford. Sad days. I'm going to really miss Maidstone. Heck, I already do. Oh well.

 

 

Well lets see what happened... Showed up at Staines chapel (we don't meet at the temple anymore for transfers.. LAME!!!) and reunited with the greatest missionaries on earth, including... Elder Hegerhorst! The Legend!!! Miss that man. Also saw Elder Fingerle and Elder Mecham, guys from my MTC group, they're all doing good. I even saw Elder Ormsby (didn't get a picture with him though) he's training.. for the second time! Wow.

 

I got paired up with Elder Tikoicina, great man. We are trying to build up the area, its basically a white-wash since Elder Tikoicina has only been here for a transfer and his last companion didn't help him very much get used to the area or anything.

 

The computer is REALLY bugging out right now and is basically breaking, so forgive me for having a short mass e-mail. I'll attach photos (if I can) of transfers and such. Its really hard being here in London, its totally foreign to me. Its going to take a while to get used to it I think. I just hope the Lord has good things in store for me. Thank you everyone for your e-mails, and I really am grateful for your prayers because missionary work can be really stressful! Love you all

 

-Elder Blumenthal

The Craziest Week Ever!

Dear everyone,

This week has been so hectic, I don't even know where to begin.

 

Well let's backtrack to the beginning. We had a great District Meeting on Wednesday, Elder Patten's last district meeting with us!!! And I had to teach a part of it. i was a bit nervous but it seemed to go by smoothly. Elder Patten taught a really powerful lesson about following the spirit.

 

We also had exchange that day, and I was with Elder Patten here in maidstone! We went to Chris's Baptismal Interview, it went well! He passed! It was really funny though, I got pictures later of a family we visited where their dog was nursing a baby cat?! what the heck?! so funny.

 

That night we heard there was a terrorist attack (or something) in Woolwich!!! Which is literally exactly where Elder Patten and Elder Diaz live!!! but since we were on exchange, Elder Eccleton was there! Holy cow!!! Obviously everyone is alright. But it was crazy because it happened at like 2:30 PM in the middle of the afternoon! And Elder Eccleton said they were about 2 blocks away from where it happened. Scary stuff.

 

Anyways, the baptism went... pretty well... Haha!!! It was just really funny, the Ward Mission Leader is basically awesome ad does everything, and he couldn't make it so we had to do things ourselves... and we didn't relaly have a pianist, so the singing was so funny! everyone was off-key and everything. Oh well. Still good.

 

And to top things off, Saturday we had a stake "road show" which is like a big talent show with skits, it was way cool, our ward should've won! dangit! But everyone did really good, I enjoye dit lots. I didn't really get many photos from it, besides us eating biscuits in the hall afterwards haha. But yeah, its been a good week, thanks everyone for the e-mails! Until next week!

 

-Elder Skyler Blumenthal

Stake Conference Weekend!

Hey everyone, this week has been really great, it was Stake Conference for us, and anyone else in all of the UK! We had a broadcast from Salt Lake City (I think) with President Eyring, Elder Richard G. Scott, and a few other General authority/auxiliary leaders.

President Eyring gave an amazing talk, about how it doesn't really matter if we have an "amazing spiritual experience" if we don't act upon it and keep our covenants. At least  that's what I got out of the talk.

Well how is everyone doing? I heard about Grandpa Call. I already miss him. I really do wish that everyone is doing okay despite the tragic loss. On the bright side, as Mom said, He's reunited with Grandma Call and Terry! 

Well Chris, an investigator of ours, is set for baptism this Friday! It's awesome to see someone come so far and willing to make that covenant with Heavenly Father. He's the first person that will be baptized that I've originally contacted. On the street no less! Just randomly talking to people, and Elder Hegerhorst and I found such an awesome guy.

Nothing new really in Maidstone, but I won't forget to send everyone the hilarious photos and such of things thats been going on lately.

Until next week!

-Elder Blumenthal

Happy Mothers Day!

Happy Mother's day everyone!!! I had a great mother's day. Got to talk to the family! I think my favorite part of the conversation with my family was what my mom said near the end of our conversation, she basically said that everyone is doing alright, no one is in any serious trouble and things are still going good. I think the biggest thing I worry about while I'm out here is what's going on back home. It was so comforting to hear that everyone I know of is doing okay.

 

This week has been pretty awesome. We went to the Temple with Chris, our investigator whose getting baptized on the 24th of May. While there we got pretty hungry, so we walked to some restaurant, and guess who we saw!? The Pelhams!!!! It was so legit. I didn't get a picture but they did. It was the best!!! I never even thought I'd see them for my entire life basically, and I got to see them at the temple! I feel kind of bad because I didn't get much time to talk to them, and ask about Calum and Hannah and everyone else in haywards heath, but from what I've heard everyone's doing alright.

 

Well yeah yesterday we had to give 2 people blessings back-to-back!!! And we had to go all the way across Maidstone just to get to the other one. So it was funny because once we gave Sister Collingwood a blessing we basically had to book it back to the flat so Elder Eccleton could talk to his family. I've never seen my feet walk so fast in my life! haha! But everything went alright for Elder Eccleton and he got to talk to everyone, his family is doing good.

 

We had Zone Conference this week as well, which was pretty great. It was kind of weird because it didn't have too much I got out of it, I don't know if it was just me or the people who organized it, but we listened to an Area Authority, Elder Herbertson, who basically told us the success of missionary work, which comes from working with members for referrals who DON'T interact with members all the time, so for instance Less-Actives and others who don't have leadership callings, rather than the Bishop and priesthood/auxilliary leaders. It makes sense really. We visited a strong family and asiked if they knew anyone they could invite to church, and they were just like, "Well... We don't really associate with many others outside of church..." Haha! So it just reaffirmed to me that the best places to look are the places that no one would think of.

 

That's about it really. Good week, very busy and not much proselyting unfortunately. We're moving flats soon because the areas going to be a 4-man area!! If I stay that would be SO awesome!!! Haha! But who knows. Anyways, until next week everyone

 

-Elder Skyler Blumenthal

Interesting Week!!!

Hey everyone, sorry for the late e-mail. It was a Bank Holiday so all the libraries and stuff were closed so I didn't get to e-mail everyone I wanted, sorry about that. The week has been really busy! We're getting 38 new missionaries this transfer, and only around 10 are going home! So that means 28 new areas are opening up! That's so crazy!!!!!!

 

Along with that, Maidstone is proibably getting another set of missionaries, so Elder Eccleton and I are looking for a flat for them. It'd be so cool to have a 4-man area in maidstone! No more lame P-days. Haha

 

We've also been teaching Chris Connolly and have him set for the 25th of May for baptism! He's way cool. Really excited for it! I'm hoping that we'll be able to prepare him as much as the Lord would need him for the baptism.

 

Sorry for the kind of lame e-mail, it's kind of rushed and all. Well thank you everyone for the e-mails and your support, it realy does help. Hope you all have a great week! Can't wait until Mother's day!!!

 

-Elder Blumenthal