Welcome To Paisley

To my dearest friends and family. It’s been an absolutely amazing week! I can honestly say this is the busiest I have ever been in my life... but I love it. Life is great and the church is true! Time is short so I’ll have to be swift and dive right in!

 Aug. 15th

My last day in Dalkeith was filled with loads of amazing food and a lot of sad goodbyes. The saddest goodbye was with Jonathan, everyone was crying! I never really knew how close the relationships were here in Dalkeith until I had to say goodbye! I was also up late packing… UHG!

It's hard to say goodbye

Aug. 16th

Tuesday was absolutely wild! I was up bright and earlier in the morning, and I gathered up my entire luggage and slowly moved from bus to bus until we made it to the mission home. Once we arrived at the mission home I went with my good friend Elder McCappin on a train down to Glasgow Central via train. Let me tell ya, moving two suitcases, and a carry on, and a shoulder bag, and a guitar all on your own takes some serious skill. When we finally made it to Glasgow we met a group of missionaries at the train station. One of them being my new companion Elder Wilson, from Durban South Africa. Elder Wilson is a boss, we have a lot of fun together and are going to light this Zone on fire! Somehow we managed to get all of my bags, along with another companionship and their bags all in our little Mariva. I literally had a massive suitcase upside down sitting on my lap. From there we visited a missionary in the Hospital, dropped off some missionaries, and then made it to Irvine where I got to unload some of my junk into my new flat. Right after that we rushed back down to Glasgow and picked up a couple more missionaries that were coming in from Ireland. We made it back to our place just as the night was coming to a close. 

Aug. 17th

Wednesday was even crazier than Tuesday! Where to I even start?? First we dropped off the missionaries we picked up from Glasgow. Next we got a call from the Mission President saying a missionary from our zone left his last flat in a wreck, and that we had to pick him up, take him to clean it up till it was sparkling. So that’s exactly what we did. The upside was his old flat was in Greenock, this was the first time I’ve been back since my Greeny days! The bad part was helping him clean for hours... After that we had to rush some missionaries to the mission home for some strange reason, and then Elder Wilson tells me that we have a big instruction we need to do tonight for every Priesthood Leader and missionary in the Paisley Stake. We literally had to think of what we were going to teach on the car ride over, and then wing it! The Spirit helped us out with the words to say, and we actually delivered a pretty great instruction. It was a miracle!! It goes without saying that when I got home I slept like a log. 

It was so good to see Gavin Higgins again.

Aug. 18th

In the morning we had to drop some more Elders off in Glasgow, but then we finally got to do some work in our own area! Moves week is just ridiculous. We did some solid street contacting, and then I got to meet our investigators. The first one is named Jim. He has one heck of a mustache.

  

The other is named Nicola, she is super cool and is actually supposed to be baptized this Saturday!! Please keep them in your prayers :) Oh yeah and a man named George had us for dinner and fed us some prawn curry... That was an experience. 

Aug. 19th

Today we met a lot of crazy bitter Scots and got very wet in the pouring rain. It was pretty sweet. We also taught a Catholic lady named Margret!

Aug 20th

This morning we went to see depressed Jim and motivated the heck out of him. He is basically a new man. We also had a sweet lesson with Nicola about Joseph Smith. Later on we taught a man named John the Plan of Salvation on the street, we taught him how to pray and committed him to baptism. And then we finished off the night by talking to all the drunks on the streets and calling them to repentance. 

Aug 21st

Sunday was amazing, we managed to get both Jim and Nicola there and they both seemed to really enjoy it! Nicola felt the spirit super strong during sacrament and is now pretty solid for her baptism on Saturday! I also got the opportunity to give and mini talk and in sacrament and got to introduce myself. I spoke mostly about the power of a testimony and the experience I’ve had on my mission where I’ve seen others begin to build one of their own, and how I have seen their life’s change as they've begun to recognize and feel the love God has for them. It was pretty solid. 

  

Well there ya have it, a watered down version of my crazy week. Missionary life is just the best! I'm great full for all the new opportunities headed my way to learn, grow, and serve! And I'm especially grateful for all of you! I love you all and pray for you every night. 

Love, Elder Cluster