Elder Mark Ensign: Week 27: January 13, 2020

你们好!

First off, I hit my 6 months mark! So way to go for that! Already 1/4th done, it's going by WAYYY fast!

Second, I'm in a new area now, Kendal! Kendal is one of the most northern areas in the mission and to put it simply, it's a really hard area. Theres a branch here of about 15 members, and there hasn't been a baptism in over 2 years. Street contacting and tracting is what we end up doing every day pretty much all day too since we dont ever really have people to teach. Everyone in this town knows who the missionaries are and they're all not interested... so that's a little hard. And I really dont have any opportunities to speak Chinese since theres probably only 5 chinese people in all of kendal, and I have an English speaking companion. But that's ok! I'll just have to find those 5 Chinese people haha

But I LOVE it here! It literally couldnt be more different from the Manchester ysa ward but I think I really needed this change. Me and my new companion Elder Smith get along really well. We both have a lot in common and we're both working really hard. Also, the air is sooooo fresh here, and the scenery is AMAZING. The church building is also literally right next to the river which runs through town. For street contacting every day, we basically walk alongside the river for like a mile and then we turn around and go through town. All the buildings here are super old, so it literally feels like an old england town. Oh and branch rules are different than wards, so we get fed 5 days a week. The same 5 families feed us everywhere week haha. It's literally so nice. Usually you can only get fed by one family twice per transfer, but that rule doesnt exist here so we get fed by the same 5 families every week. I love it so much. I'm gonna get soo fat. I had the most greasy fish & chips the other day which was soooo good. Its definitely wayyyy different from YSA where I only got fed like twice haha

I feel like a real missionary now haha. This past week it's been pouring rain like every day. And I've officially been tracting everyday! Usually its just been on exchanges haha. So knocking on doors while its pouring rain is basically my life now. And we have bikes too haha. We pretty much only bike to buy groceries, but still. This is kinda my vision for what missionary work was gonna be like haha. Biking, tracting in the rain

Also, we have one person on date for baptism! His name is John. He got put on baptism a couple weeks before I got here. But right now we're planning on 8 Feb. But we'll see how that goes because from what I can see from him, he has some pride issues. So that'll interesting. ALSO, I found the one Chinese person in Kendal! Literally everyone here is white. But I found her on my first official day in kendal! I teach her english sometimes and she's gonna teach me Chinese haha. So I'll see how she goes haha. Also theres some Chinese restaurants here with Chinese people that work in them so I plan on talking to them sometimes to practice my Chinese.

I was a little sad to be transferred here at first, but I'm really excited to be here now! I'm hoping we can change the area!

-高长老

Just an overload of pics, wait for pt. 2 haha