Agency Sucks!

                                                                                                                                       May 18, 2015
Well, where do I even begin. This was probably the most disappointing week yet.

First off, we had a total of 4 appointments fall through. It can be really hard when you talk to someone, they seem genuinely interested, and then they change their mind. 

We had two referrals from mormon.org this week!!! We got really excited about one of them because we set up an appointment with him, and he even texted us the day of the appointment to confirm!! We thought he was going to be super solid. Turns out, both of them were just a prank. Not interested at all. Thanks for wasting 2 hours of our time sir!

Sometimes, people having the ability to choose sucks! I really wish that people would just make the right decision all time. But, that is not the Plan that was set forth so it looks like we are just going to have to work with it and roll with the punches. 

On the bright side, we finally got back in touch with Isabella (a less active we are working with). We hadn't seen her for a couple weeks and we thought she was avoiding us. But, we got to go and teach her and we got her to say the closing prayer for the lesson!!! Probably a small thing to get excited about, but it's progress. Next step, get her back to church!

We also had Zone Interview Training (ZIT) this week. It's basically like Zone Conference, but we get to have one-on-one interviews with President Brown. It was great getting to just talk about concerns that I have, and having him give me some suggestions to work through them. President Brown is a great man!

Scottish vocab of the week:

Eejit: basically translates to English as idiot! I love this word!

Hope you are all doing well! I love hearing from you and am so grateful for all the prayers! Love and miss you all!

 

--Elder Wilson

Sister Fran is a less active we are working with. She feeds the missionaries every other week! Great lady!!!

                                              Selfie in Strathclyde in a Roman bath house

Trunky

Hola!!

Hope you are all doing well! 

This week has been a mixture of disappointment and hope! So, last week we had three appointments set up with potential investigators. When we talked to them the first time, they seemed genuinely interested and open to learning about the Gospel. Well, needless to say, all three appointments fell through. Two just didn't answer the door, and one got sick. But, we are not giving up on them! We are trying by them again this week, and prayers would be greatly appreciated! Their names are Carmen, John, and Emma. 

 

The hopeful part of this week came near the end. As we going to do some try by's in North Motherwell, this random guy recognized us as missionaries and started talking to us about the Book of Mormon. At first, I thought he was just drunk and crazy, as most Scots are on Friday nights. However, he ended up giving us a fairly accurate synopsis of 1 Nephi, and we found out that he was actually a less active member who had been baptised about 2 years ago. He has a very sincere desire to come back to church, so we are meeting with him this week to hopefully help him get reactivated! Another great thing that came from this meeting was that Ian (that's his name) had given one of his friends a Book of Mormon about 2 weeks ago! He is going to get us his address and we are going to try by him this week as well! Looks like things might be on the up and up here in Motherwell!

Kind of scary/sad thing that is happening right now is that areas are starting to get shut down. In the next few transfers, the number of missionaries leaving is much greater than the number that are arriving. This means that there won't be as many missionaries to fill up all the areas that we currently have. They are starting with wards that have more than one team serving in them. This means that Motherwell could be on the chopping block since our ward has two teams. It would actually be really sad to have to leave for that reason. This transfer alone, they are shutting down 2 sister areas and 5 elder areas. A team in our district just got a call this morning saying that they are one of the 5 elder areas. Hopefully we can hang in there!

As many of you know, yesterday was Mother's Day!! This is one of the best days for a missionary because it is one of the 2 times a year that they can Skype home!! It was so great actually getting to talk with my parents! So much fun! But, this brings me to my Scottish vocab of the week. This isn't actually a Scottish word, but it's a common word used by S.I.M missionaries. Maybe it's used by all missionaries, but I'm not really sure. The word is....

Trunky: basically another word for homesick. It references a trunk (or piece of luggage). I hear this word from Elder Blaylock a lot, since he only has 3 months left. 

Skyping home made me a little bit trunky. Not as much as I thought it would, which is good, but just a little bit!

Before I leave, just a bit of advice. Do all you can to help the missionaries in your ward. This work is impossible without the help of the members, a lesson I am learning the hard way. Help them any way you can. Feed them, go on joint teaches with them, give them referrals! 

Hope you all have a fabulous week! Love and miss you all!!

Stay awesome! Keep moving forward!

--Elder Wilson

 Elder Blaylock and I at our stake's Helping Hands service project! Picking up rubbish!!! 

 

Here's our crazy district! From the back to front, left to right. Sister Jackson, Sister Stewart, Elder Burch, Elder Blaylock, Sister Prescott, Sister Stein, Elder Benton, ME!!!

 

Quick Update

May 6

Hey all!! Not a lot of time for this email. Sorry about that!! Quick update though: last week we found 3 potential investigators that we are going to try and meet with this week! Praying really hard that this appointements don't fall through, and prayers from all of you would be greatly appreciated!! Other than that, I am doing well! Staying dry for the most part and just working hard!! Love and miss you all!

Stay awesome! Keep moving forward!

--Elder Wilson

Visiting castle ruins

"The Lord Must Bring Us Low, Before He Can Lift Us Higher"

Hello friends! This week was, in a nutshell, disappointing. 

 

We started teaching a new couple who, a few years ago, had asked for their names to be removed from the records, but are now looking to get rebaptised. We taught them on Wednesday, and thought that the lesson went pretty well. Well, yesterday we got a text from them saying that they were no longer interested in being rebaptised. We have no clue what caused this sudden change of heart, but we were pretty upset about it afterwards!

 

Another not so fun thing that happened was on Thursday. We were going to teach a less active member named Isabella. Well, on the bus to the appointment, we get a text from the member who was going to come teaching with us saying that he could no longer make it. According to mission rules, in order to teach a single woman, you need to have 3 males (the two missionaries and a member) going to teach for safety reasons. Without him, we could not teach her. We had to go to her house and apologise for not being able to come in, but gave her a pamphlet on the Plan of Salvation (the lesson we were going to teach her). It was no fun because she loves having the missionaries over and looked really disappointed when we couldn't teach her. 

It can be hard sometimes reading about my friends in South America or USA who get baptisms every other month, and I can barely get an investigator.

In the movie, Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration, Joseph Smith says that " the Lord must bring us low, before He can lift us higher." Elder Blaylock and I are feeling pretty low right about now

 

. Hopefully this new transfer will be the lifting higher part of that promise! Prayers would be very much appreciated!!

The highlight of my week was P-day. Elder Blaylock, the sisters, and I went to Chatelherault Country Park for the day! It was a beautiful sunny day (I actually got sunburned), and we got to walk through the forest, see some Scottish scenery, and sun tan! It was super fun. If you ever get the chance to go to Scotland, I would definitely recommend going there. It's not as well known as some other places, but it is great!!

Scottish vocab of the week!

Cuddles: here in Scotland, a hug is not called a hug. Instead, you give people cuddles! It was really weird when I first heard it. It's like, why are these two guys cuddling?! But Elder Blaylock explained it to me, so it all makes sense now!

Hope you all have a fantastic week! Love and miss you all!!

Stay awesome! Keep moving forward!
--
--Elder Wilson

 

 

 

Elder Blaylock, Me, Sister Stewart, Sister Stein

 

 

Motherwell crew (Elder Blaylock, Sister Stewart, Sister Stein)

 

Chatelherault Country Park

 

 

 

Disconnected

Hello friends!

It has been a fairly interesting week! On Wednesday, Elder Blaylock and I went to Carluke (about an hour bus ride from Motherwell) to go and try by some former investigators and less active members. Once we got back to the flat, we grabbed some stuff to go to the church and make our progress record and go to a meeting. On our way out, Elder Blaylock asked if I had the phone. I said no and that I had only touched it once all day. We went and tore the flat apart looking for it. It was nowhere to be found! Well, we had to get to the church in order to be on time for the meeting. When we got there, we had the sister missionaries call our phone just to see what would happen. On the second try, some Scottish answered! He said he found the phone on a bus (it had fallen out of Elder Blaylock's pocket). He tried to give it to the bus driver, but the bus driver couldn't take it for whatever reason. Well, he was going to be in Glasgow for the weekend, so we couldn't get back that day. Luckily, Elder Blaylock and I were going on exchanges with some elders in Glasgow the next day, so we arranged a time to meet with him and pick it up. Well, the next day came and the guy never showed up! GRR! After Elder Blaylock and I were back in Motherwell, we borrowed the sister's phone and called the mission home. The elder who handles the phones wasn't too upset since the phone we lost was one of the older phones, and he placed an order for a new one! In the meantime, we are borrowing an extra phone the zone leaders had so we aren't completely helpless! 

That was the most exciting thing that happened all week. No new people or

amazing miracles this week. This is the last week of the transfer, and yesterday we got a call telling us if we would be moving or staying where we are. I will be staying in Motherwell with Elder Blaylock for one more transfer. This isn't too surprising because trainees are rarely separated from their trainers before their 12 weeks of training are up. I'm super excited for this transfer! I feel like it's going to be really good and that we are going to see a lot more success than we have these past few weeks! Prayers would be greatly appreciated though!!

Scottish vocab of the week:

Nae: for some reason, Scottish people have a problem with the word 'not'. Instead of saying that word they use the word 'nae'. For instance, 'cannot' becomes 'cannae' and 'was not' becomes 'wasnae', Takes some getting used to!

Hope you all have a fabulous week! Love and miss you all!

Stay awesome! Keep moving forward! 

--

--Elder Wilson

Scottish countryside

Weekly planning at Strathclyde Loch

Springtime Sickness

Hi friends!!

Hope you all have had a wonderful week. Mine was good but a little bleh as well!

For starters, Elder Blaylock and I both got hit with a nasty cold this week and spent Wednesday in our flat. Talk about cabin fever. Thankfully, we had 17 Miracles, Ephraim's Rescue, and Legacy to watch, so that helped me to keep my sanity. The Zone Leaders also have something called the Sanity Pack for when you have to spend multiple days in the flat. Hopefully I never have to use that!

Another kind of disappointing thing was that Stuart dropped us. He said that he just wasn't getting any answers about what he was learning and that he just didn't want to continue meeting with us. Now we are back to square 1, and doubling our finding efforts to hopefully find some new investigators! Prayers would be much appreciated!!

On a happy note, our less active work is doing very well! We found a new less active to teach named Isabella. She is in her early 70's, and is currently trying to quit smoking. We have met with her twice, and the second time, she said that she was able to cut back the amount that she was smoking quite a bit, which was great to hear!! The challenge with her will be getting her to church. She does not have a car, so we will have to find her a lift. The only problem is, there aren't very many members who live very close to her. I know that the Lord will provide a way though. He always does!

This week was also Elder Blaylock's birthday! He turned 22 (I don't know about you, but I'm feeling 22! Taylor Swift song for those uncultured people who read this) To celebrate, we made giant hoagies, made a 3 layer chocolate cake and decorated it with some toys that I have been collecting from Kinder eggs (if you don't know what Kinder eggs are, look them up! They are fantastic!). 

Springtime is in the air here in Scotland, and I could not be more excited! I am so ready to shed my sweater and be able to just go out in short sleeves! The trees are also budding which is fun to see as well! 

A new thing I am going to start doing is a Scottish vocab segment! The Scottish people seriously need their own dictionary because they have plenty of words that nobody else uses. Here is this weeks word:

Minging/minger: Minging is kind of another word for nasty, dirty or ratchet. A minger, is someone who would be described as minging and is a common missionary insult. 

I hope you all have a great week!!

 

 

Stay awesome! Keep moving forward!

--

--Elder Wilson

Pics: 1) Constructing the cake 2) The finished product 3) Elder Blaylock enjoying his birthday dinner!

General Conference and Kababtism

Hey all!

Hope you all had a wonderful Easter and general conference weekend!

 

Quick investigator update: Gary (the new investigator from a couple weeks ago) dropped us after one lesson. We called to confirm our appointment and he said that he just needed to clear his head. We have the feeling it was because of our Bishop (he was our joint teach). He just kind of dumped the gospel on Gary and brought up some pretty deep doctrine. It wasn't good, and Elder Blaylock and I totally lost control of the lesson. As for Stuart, he's doing alright. Everytime we resolve one concern, he brings up two more. It's going to be a long process, but he will get there eventually.

So this weekend was general conference and it was super good!! I definitely learned a lot! Plus, I got to watch the Saturday and Sunday morning sessions live. The only down side was I didn't get to watch the Sunday afternoon session. Hopefully I get the chance later on this week. Nobody spoil it for me!

So, you are all probably wondering what a kebabtism is. Well, I will tell you! A kebab is a type of food they have here in Scotland. I have attached a picture so you can see what it is. A tradition here in the Scotland/Ireland mission (SIM) is called a kebabtism and receiving the gift of the holy Coke. Sacreligious: yes, but it happens anyway. To get kebabtised and receive the holy Coke, you get the biggest kebab you can buy and the largest Coke, and eat all of it in one sitting with your hands. It's all good fun. Everone was telling me about the awful side effects that come from it like dry mouth, itchy skin, bad dreams (also called kebab dreams), and stuff like that. Naturally I was terrified! However, I experienced none of these symptoms. Some people were pretty upset and confused as to why I didn't. I'm just that awesome, I guess. 

 

Hope you all have a great week! I love hearing from you all, and I miss you all bunches!!

Stay awesome! Keep moving forward!

--Elder Wilson

 

The TARDIS is in Scotland!

"Kababtism"

Kebab