Week 71: November 16, 2020

Hey everyone!

Well, I hit my 16 month mark last week, and today is actually my 500 day mark on my mission! 2/3rds done. It's honestly so weird how fast my mission has gone by, I'll literally be home in less than 8 months. I kinda got a little emotional this past week thinking at all the things that have happened the past 16 months of my life, all the people I've met and things I've learned. Google photos showing me all my “one year ago today” pictures has definitely contributed to that haha. Definitely motivates me to want to work as hard as I can for the last stretch I have left!

Not much new this week except for a bunch of members coming in clutch and bringing us food, when we shopped last week we basically forgot to buy everything we needed which was a big rip. But the members saved us. We have some members that bring us a lot of ethnic food, they brought us this seafood casserole the other day which was soooo good, and then they also got us this indian food they made for diwali. Elder sewell is kinda a wimp with food so he didnt really like it, so basically when he gets to the Phillipines he's gonna have a tough time haha

What also contributed to the lack of food in our flat is our flat itself. For some reason, if you put food at specific places on the counter, it gets really moldy within like 2 days, but in some places on the counter, the food will basically last forever. I had the scare of my life when I picked up a bag of oranges and one single orange at the bottom of the bag was completely covered in mold, while the rest of them looked fine. So that's kinda annoying/weird

That's basically it though haha. We've should be getting busy soon cause we got like 3 referrals this past week which is super exciting! So burnley should get moving soon!

-Elder Ensign 高长老

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Altrincham Road

Manchester M22 4BJ 

England 

A tree in town centre that looks like the tree of life

Pics from some hikes!

 

Week 70: November 9, 2020

Hey all!

Not a super exciting week, england went on a second lockdown last week, but that hasn't really changed much except we cant go to the barbershop or shops, unless it's a grocery store. We're allowed to go outside and walk around whenever we want though which is really nice, definitely a step up from the first lockdown in March-May

I had exchanges for like the second time since corona hit, so basically since March! I had one in person exchange back in july, and this past week we had an exchange over the phone which was really weird. We did comp study over the phone and whatnot, then we had to teach lessons over the phone which wasn't too new. It was really strange but kinda fun

Anyways that's basically it, we havent really had much going on. Just been teaching lessons and finding through facebook all day!

-Elder Ensign 高长老

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Altrincham Road

Manchester M22 4BJ 

England 

We went to a castle last pday, yes, I'm very photogenic

Nice scenery on our runs  

Week 69: November 2, 2020

Hey!

Real quick our next Why I Believe Devotional is gonna be this sunday! I know it's like the 8th one or something crazy like that but this one is gonna be a little special! It's gonna be on remembrance sunday so there will be a bit on that. Also I may or may not be playing the piano in it sooo.... give it a watch this sunday! 

https://www.facebook.com/108994970763667/posts/181929400136890/?sfnsn=scwspmo

The Prime Minister announced last Saturday night that we're going into another full lockdown starting this Thursday, basically like how it was in March-May. So only grocery shops are remaining open (clothing shops, barbershops, etc. will close), and we cant leave our flat except to go shopping & exercise. We also wont be able to talk with or meet with people outside of our household. So I got my hair cut today and did some “nonessential shopping” cause after Thursday basically everything will be closed

Other than that not much happened this week. This past week we did have a virtual mission tour with Elder and Sister Kopischke, who are part of the European Area Presidency. Basically, it was a really long zone conference where they instructed us for about 3 hours everyday. It was really good though, they talked about a lot and went really deep into the premortal life haha

-Elder Ensign 高长老

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Altrincham Road

Manchester M22 4BJ 

England 

Some nice pics while we were running one morning

Newest addition to the flat 

 

Week 68: October 26, 2020

 Hey everyone! 

Shannon got baptized on Saturday! It was really exciting for her, it was honestly crazy how fast everything happened. We found her about a month ago, and within like a week & a half, she was on date for baptism. And now she's baptized, only a month and a couple days later. She's only 17 as well, shes actually golden. She just messaged us and said “Im intrigued, what's the Book of Mormon?”, and now she's baptized! It was such a special day. A little sad Elder Price wasn't able to make it, Shannon originally got in contact with him and he was involved with all of the teaching. He was supposed to baptize her but President Johnson decided the night before he probably shouldn't come up here since most of the mission is really serious with the virus right now. So Elder Sewell baptized her, I guess she's his first baptism even though he only talked to her once before the baptism? Elder price still got to watch over the phone which is good!

Anyways, training Elder Sewell has been fun. He's from Sheffield in the UK which is really close to here, and he was originally assigned to serve in the Phillipines. He's been fun to serve with, it's weird training someone again especially since they're not assigned to speak Chinese, but I'm enjoying it. Also trying to learn tagalog but I have a terrible memory so cant even remember how to say hello haha

That's really it for this week, not anything super exciting going on. The members keep giving us food though, we literally have soooo much food in our flat right now. Our elders quorum president came over the other with like £60 worth of groceries & junk food, and we had 3 tea appointments so we're stressing about eating all the food we have haha

-Elder Ensign 高长老

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Altrincham Road

Manchester M22 4BJ 

England 

Elder Smith and I on transfer day with our matching companionship ties! My favourite English assigned companion from America so far haha

Shannon's baptism :)

Temple pics!

Week 67: October 19, 2020

Hey everyone!

Its transfers this week! I'm staying in Burnley and training! So itll be an exciting transfer. I'll be training a reassigned missionary, hes supposed to go to the Philippines. He also served in Kendal this past transfer which is where I served for a transfer earlier this year so thatll be exciting! I'll have some pics next week. Elder Price is leaving, hes gonna be whitewashing into an area which will be exciting for him. It's been a good transfer though, it flew by

I got absolutely whooped in football this past week, a member invited us to his football group and Elder Price loves playing football so we went along. I'm pretty trash at football and British people are all really good, so it was a pretty embarrasing hour of my life haha. We probably wont be able to go anymore cause its transfers and we most likely wont have a car anymore :(

Other than that not much happened this week. We do have a friend getting baptized this saturday though, Shannon, which is exciting! Shes amazing, we literally found her just over a month ago and shes already getting baptized

The highlight of the week though, was Elder Bednar had an exclusive meeting with our whole mission over zoom this past week! It was insane, President Johnson pulled a couple strings I guess, and told us on Thursday that Elder Bednar would be addressing us on sunday. It was seriously amazing, definitely the best mission zoom devotional I've ever had. He gave lots of really wise advice, a lot of what he said was actually really similar to what he talked about in the MTC while I was there. He talked about a LOT of things, most regarding missionary work, but one thing I particularly liked was one thing he talked about was “dont put limitations on God”. I think that's such an interesting thing to think about, I think naturally we as humans will put limitations on God without even realizing it. But I know if listen to God, rather than just telling Him what to do, we'll be so blessed 

-Elder Ensign 高长老

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Altrincham Road

Manchester M22 4BJ 

England 

Primark 

More pics

Elder Bednar!

 

Week 66: October 12, 2020

Hey everyone!

It was an alright week. This past week we went to a little town in my area called Downham, which has a lot of church history. Apparently missionaries there weren't having very much success, but then they sent the apostles here and ended up baptizing hundreds of people. Also when Elder Holland had the inspiration to build a temple in Chorley (the preston England temple) while in Downham, he prayed under a tree and saw where the temple should go. So we went and got pictures under the tree haha. Well we dont know if it was actually the tree, we just guessed haha. It's probably not the tree tbh, we would be very lucky if we picked the right tree. Downham was also super big for witches a while ago, I heard theres been a bunch of movies made in and about Downham which is pretty interesting

Burnley is actually a super nice area, there's lots of good scenery and places to go hiking. We went hiking this morning up this place called Pendle hill which I guess is where they executed witches before? Maybe? I could be wrong but it's a super tall hill that overlooks a valley, and they made another movie up there about witches haha

Other than that we've just been super busy! We have a new friend we put on date last week which is really exciting so we've been busy with that and just teaching people all day. Transfers are also next week so I guess we'll see what happens

-Elder Ensign 高长老

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Altrincham Road

Manchester M22 4BJ 

England 

Us under the elder Holland tree haha

Some pics of downham & pendle hill

 

Week 65: October 5, 2020

 Hey everyone!

The virus has started to basically erupt over here in england, it's especially bad in my mission. The 3 worst cities in the UK for the coronavirus are Manchester, Liverpool, and Burnley (where I am right now). All 3 cities are in my mission. In the UK, Monday-Friday had about 7,000 new cases each day, and basically everyday was announced as a record high for cases in one day since the virus started. Saturday had 13,000 new cases, and on sunday it shot up to 23,000 new cases in one day. So it's pretty likely we may get stuck in our flats all day again if this keeps up, but hopefully not! 

On another episode of finding free/cheap things on facebook marketplace, the other missionaries in my flat found a pool table on facebook marketplace for like £35. So being expert bargainers, they managed to haggle the price down to £10 and now we have a pool table in the middle of our kitchen. So that's been pretty fun to play in our free time haha, it's super funny how much they've been able to find. As far as I know, theres no plans to find new stuff on facebook marketplace cause theres nowhere left to put it haha

We ate GOOD this week. We had 3 members feed us this week (they just dropped it off st our flat cause we cant meet people in person) for the first time since I've been in Burnley, and apparently the first time members have fed the missionaries in Burnley for a couple months. So that was super nice. We also made a nachos table haha. Basically we covered a table in aluminium foil, then covered it with chips, cheese sauce, salsa, sour cream, guacamole, meat, etc. It was an insane amount of food, we had it for lunch and were still full when tea time came around. I'll attach some pics

And general conference was this week! I really loved all the talks, but one I liked in particular was Elder Cook's. He talked a lot about the need we have for unity, and how we need to try and love like the Saviour. As we do so, contention will leave, and unity will come. He also said something along the lines of, “unity is enhanced when people are treated with dignity and respect, even when they are different.” I just really loved that, I feel like theres a lot of people on this earth we may consider “different” on earth today, whether that's because of race, culture, religion, etc. But we need to try and always love like the Saviour did. In the scriptures, it always gives examples of Christ reaching out to those who dont always feel accepted. Whether that was lepers, sinners, adulterers, pharisees, etc. Christ reached out and loved them all. So cant we? Theres so many people that feel unaccepted, and it's our duty to love them

-Elder Ensign 高长老

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Altrincham Road

Manchester M22 4BJ 

England 

Pool table

View from window (primark )

Chinese missionaries again 

All the missionaries in my flat with the nacho table 🤤 plus a photogenic name tag pic 

A very windy hike we went on this morning, I'll maybe send more pics next week cause I dont have too much room left in this email

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Week 64: September 28, 2020

Hey everyone!

It's been a pretty busy and crazy week. Burnley just moved to the #1 worst city in the whole UK for the coronavirus a couple days ago (or at least that's what all the members are saying). I guess the virus is spreading pretty rapidly over here but I havent noticed cause we didn't really leave the flat much this week

Also started teaching the gospel to 4 chinese people through English classes so that's nice!

Last Monday we had some more elders move into our flat, so now we're a 4 man flat! They had whitewashed into their new area and I guess all the elders beforehand had done a terrible job at taking care of the flat, so the bathroom had a terrible mold problem. It was making them really sick as well (coughing, headaches, etc., haha they thought they had covid for a little bit), the bathroom is literally super nasty. We were at their flat last week and after being there for just a couple hours, Elder Price and I got headaches. So they moved into our flat so its pretty lucky our flat is super big!

Also the new elders in our flat are pretty obsessed with using Facebook marketplace to find free stuff. They bought a pretty big corner sofa for their old flat, and now they've been trying to find free stuff to furnish our flat haha. So far weve gotten a dining table, plus a bunch of dining chairs. So now we have like 10 tables chilling in our flat and 2 dining tables, but I guess it's free right? 

They also found a huge sofa and a lazy boy for free as well, so we had a member pick it up and bring it to our flat. But when they got here we found out that it was too big to bring up the stairs so that was a big rip. So now theres a couple couches chilling at the chapel in Burnley

One highlight of the week was probably going to the temple! Not inside obviously, but we had interviews with President Johnson in person at the stake centre right next to the temple so we got to walk around and take some pics

-Elder Ensign 高长老

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Altrincham Road

Manchester M22 4BJ 

England 

Temple pictures

 

Week 63: September 21, 2020

Hey everyone!

We have had quite a busy week! We found 22 new people to teach which is pretty insane. Probably the highest burnley has found in one week ever. It was pretty crazy haha. Elder Price turned to me on sunday night (8 days ago) and just went “we're making at least 10 friends this week”, I thought he was a little crazy at first but lo and behold here we are. He found most of the friends though. I actually found a bunch of chinese people through free english classes, so that's pretty exciting! I posted an ad on facebook and over 70 people responded, all of which live in the uk. So that's been pretty overwhelming, I still have lots of opportunities to speak chinese, who knew? Haha I've split them up among all the chinese missionaries in my mission though so I wont be insanely stressed all the time. we'll hopefully be sending loads of referrals to all the missions in the uk pretty soon as well

I recorded a video this past week that I'm putting out on my facebook this wednesday! It took me like 3 weeks to learn which was surprisingly quick haha, it was a lot easier than I thought it would be. So hit that like & share button when I post it if you're nice :)

Anyway that's basically it, not much else from this week. Except Lancashire (which is where I just moved) basically got put on full out lockdown again, we cant meet with people anymore at all. All the businesses are still open though which is super nice so we can get haircuts and whatnot 

-Elder Ensign 高长老

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Altrincham Road

Manchester M22 4BJ 

England 

All the EMM chinese missionaries  (we may be few in numbers but we're a powerful bunch haha)

Elder Price and I's gourmet cuisine

I feel bad for not having a ton of pictures besides of my food so heres a sneak peek for Wednesday 

 

Week 62: September 15, 2020

Hey!

Well this week has been quite interesting, I started off by leaving Manchester and the flat that I've stayed in for 10 1/2 months of my mission. And now I'm in Burnley! It's a lot smaller than manchester, theres only 1 companionship here but its nice. Our flat is literally right next to the city centre, I can see Primark (my favourite British store haha) right from my window so thats a bonus. Our flat is also huge, we have 2 stories plus I get my own bathroom. It's too bad our flat is super old and literally straight out of a horror movie (complete with a long/steep scary staircase, ancient furniture, exposed lightbulbs everywhere, and plenty of places for serial killers to hide), I'm scared to be by myself cause I may get murdered 

We also have a car so for the first time in my mission we actually drive everywhere! My companion is Elder Price, he's from Wales and was serving in the Tuscon Arizona mission before corona. Hes pretty nice, hes really chill. We've also been eating a ton of non-Chinese food this past week which has been soooo nice. I didnt realize how much I would miss white people food when I was eating rice two meals a day 

We havent really been busy at all this past week, burnley's teaching pool is really small so I'm trying to work on making it bigger. I've spent a bit of time practicing piano (look out for a hymn arrangement on my fb in like a week), and I've been advertising for free english classes for chinese people so I'll hopefully have at least some opportunities to practice chinese! I actually really miss Manchester, I was a little homesick for manchester this past week ngl. I literally lived there for like a year so it makes sense, hopefully I'll go back there soon though

Anyways that's basically it this week, hope everyones doing alright!

-Elder Ensign 高长老

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Altrincham Road

Manchester M22 4BJ 

England 

Last pics of University of Manchester

The YSA district 

The view from our kitchen window  Primark

Personal study resources 

elder price and I