Scotland/Ireland: Adventures in Greenock

Hello everyone! This has been the weirdest week of my life! Hopefully I'll have time to fit all the craziness in :)

Monday 8-10 (Crazy Rain and Our Old Library)

Last P day was interesting... We email in this ancient castle thing... I heard it’s the oldest building in Greenock! One half of the thing is the library we email in, and the other half is a museum! It’s pretty cool stuff! We also had a crazy intense rain storm; I’ve never seen anything like it before! The streets were flooded in seconds! I loved it!!

Tuesday 8-11 (RIP Elder Ward and Millport)

We started the day off with district meeting. It was our district leader’s Elder Wards very last one before he goes home! It was a great meeting, I got to instruct for 20 min about courage!

After the meeting we went down to that all you can eat Cosmos place... it was amazing. We took a bus down to Largs for our Ferry to the Isle of Cumbre, I think I’ve said it before, but the drive down to Largs is the most beautiful one you’ll ever have!! The Island is stunning too! One of the perks of Greenock :)

Wednesday 8-12 (Carbon monoxide and a sleep over with Greame)

This was one of the craziest days ever!!! One I will be talking about for a while!

We started the day by baking some cookies, and dropping them by some less actives and our investigators (The two Angelas.) Those cookies worked Miracles! We ended up having two lessons, both outside of their flats! (Because there wasn’t a man in the house, we can’t go in.) We probably look pretty strange, but the lessons were great! :)

Then we had a branch Council meeting. The branch is great when it comes to helping out the missionary's, even if there aren’t very many members in it!

We stopped by the Higgins on the way back to the flat; they had some enchiladas for us!! Gavin and Kizzy make killer enchiladas! Once we got into our flat, there was this really loud beeping sound! It took us a while to figure out where it was coming from, but eventually found this carbon monoxide detector! When I picked it up, it went nuts. The light that said "Move to fresher air" and it was blinking!! We freaked out and opened all the windows, and called the AP's. They told us that there was no way we could sleep in our flat tonight and to stay at our branch presidents, but he lives in Irvine!!! After some prayer and pondering we decided to go to this recent convert’s house, Greame. We tried calling him but couldn’t get an answer, so we grabbed our blankets, pillows, and Enchiladas, and headed over unannounced!

So there we were, walking the streets of Greenock that 10:30pm with our bedding in one hand, and enchiladas in the other... oh yeah, and I was in my slickly pajamas! :) When we arrived at Greames he answered the door and didn’t even look surprised! Without asking any questions or anything he invited us in and started making us some soup!! We slept on his floor, and then snuck out the door the next morning! I got a legit video of the whole experience!

Thursday 8-13 (Branch Film Night and Bye Bye Robby)

Thursday morning we walked back to our flat and waited from someone from the mission to come. When they got there they told us we didn’t even have gas in out flat!! They switched out the batteries and the beeping stopped... kind of embarrassing but I have no regrets!

Later we went up to Port Glasgow for our very last lesson with Robby before he goes back down to London with his mom. We grew to really love that kid, and it was hard to say goodbye. It's too bad that he wanted able to be baptized but couldn’t get permission. I know he'll get there someday! The poor kid was balling during our final hugs.....

Then we went to a branch Film night! Because we had an investigator come we were able to go and eat a ton of hot dogs! They watched the Home Teachers, I didn’t actually see much of it, but I could hear it the whole time, and it brought back some great memories!

Friday 8-14 (No Angela or Sandra?)

Friday was interesting...

We had an appointment to meet one of our Angela's in the Cafe in this mall, long story short we waited forever and she didn’t show up.... it was pretty sad but I’m sure I’ll get used to that kind of stuff pretty fast!

While we were on our way back to the flat something amazing happened, This Girl named Sandra came up to us crying and told us this story about how they found her cousin dead on this bench we were right next to a week ago. She noticed we were missionary's and asked us for help. The only way she knows how to cope with the pain is alcohol but she has massive ulcers in her stomach from it. I felt so bad for this girl; you'd be shocked how often this kind of thing happens. Scotland has a massive drug problem, especially in this area. Never in my life have I had such a strong testimony of the Word of Wisdom... It makes me sick how many of these people’s lives are controlled by this substances.

We are going to see Sandra tonight so pray for us!

Saturday 8-15 (A day of Service)

We started Saturday with a solid two hours begging for money for the British Heart Foundation.... Later we did and exchange with he Pollock Elders, Elder Johnson stared in Greenock with me! When elder Johnson arrived, a new member in the branch took us to his new house where we dug tons and tons of moss from his back yard! He also gave us a grand tour of the place. This house is massive! It is pretty much the definition of posh. They let us stay for dinner; we had good old fashion hamburgers! It was nice to have something American!!!

Sunday 8.16 (MOVES CALLS)

Here’s the news.... Elder Clawson and I are both staying in Greenock like we suspected, but Elder Clawson is going to be the new District Leader!! Everyone is saying this is the craziest moves call they've ever seen! Out zone is going to be very different this transfer!

Well that’s a wrap! Till next time!!

Love, Elder Cluster