Elder Bryant Goodman: Trains, trains and more trains.

Hello my loved ones! Greetings from the land of Scottish accents, chavs, the ocean, and the smell of smoke. Not gonna lie....these past few days have been an adventure. I am doing really well, and my new companion is way rad. We get along, and I'm just so thankful he is not some bubble sheltered Utah kid. We are already way good friends! I love our flat, even though the whole upstairs smells like a hardcore smoker has been chillin up there eating bacon all day. But massive flat is roomy, and I hooked up the sound system and have been blasting the new CD that I just got. Thank you Randi! The music has given me back some soul. All is well here in Barrow.

So, my week was absolutely hectic and full of travel, and I feel like I have just barely settled here in my flat, let alone Barrow. After all of the transfer travel, before I could even get settled in, we had to wake up mega early for a Mission Leadership Meeting on Friday. This is how it went:

1.Wake up, walk to the train station and ride the train for 2 hours to Preston

2.Get to Preston, find out the Zone Leaders were not there to pick me up and already left for Manchester. Dang nabbit

3.Find the next train, which leaves an hour later

4.Get on train with the other district leader from Workington, who was also abandoned. Hour and a half of standing up like sardines on the train

5.Get to Picadilli, make the walk to the bus station

6.Hour bus ride to Machester Chapel for the meeting. Barely made in in time

After the nearly day-long meeting (which was really good by the way), I got a lift back with the Zone Leaders to Preston

7. 3 hours stuck in traffic, but made it back to the flat in Preston

8. Too late to train back to Barrow

9. Super spontaneous, instead of sleeping over with the Zone leaders cause Elder Diederich and I were fed up with them, we trained and bussed with the Lancaster Elders back to their flat in Morecombe. Beautiful area, beautiful city

10. Super rad sleepover, even though I slept on the floor and I had a towel for a blanket and I had literally nothing with me except my suit and scriptures. It was a bit rough

11. Wake up, journey to the Lancaster chapel with the Lancaster district leader (way cool english elder who likes to surf), and joined the District Leaders Council Meeting.

12. After the meeting, we bailed and met up with my companion and the other elders in the town at a pub for a £2 burger and bowl of chips, which was suprisingly really good.

13. After chilling a bit, Elder Diedrich and I made our way back to the train station, hopped on and rode about 2 hours back to Barrow.

14. Totally shattered, we unloaded our stuff and went off to do some work. That's how we roll.

So those were the rough deets of my half week in my new area. Haha I luckily got the chance to go to church yesterday and meet the very few members there, so now I am not totally lost here. The ward is dying, which is a bit sad with only 27 that showed up, including kids, but...there is one amazing family that we had tea with. The Kents!! I love them. Sheldon and Abbi are a really young couple, with 4 little kids, and they are super fun and real and just good to hang out with. Sheldon, from Essex, served his mission here in the EMM (thats were he met Abbi haha), so we talked with him for a long time about how everything has changed and how some things have stayed the same. We are going to spend most of our Christmas time with them! Movies and games and chillin all day.

I am really excited that I get to see most of your faces and voices for Christmas! I miss you all so much. I love being on this mission (I feel like its a part of me now), but I cant wait for the day that I can come back and join you all in the family get-togethers and parties and adventures. Family=love

I love you all, and I hope everyone has a rad week. This week I will be traveling again to Preston for a zone meeting, and I will also be able to travel over to Kendal for a couple days for an exchange with the Elders in my district! I'm stoked to see more of the lake district! The city of barrow itself is a total rough ghetto area, but the surrounding countryside and coast are beautiful. I'll keep you updated next week but for now, peace out.

Elder Goodman

HotTuna

The new flat and comp: