New Years in Preston.

Heyo family. I just realized...I am so tired of writing missionary emails. I love you all, but I can't wait till I can just say it to your face. Not too much longer now!

Ok, because of my lack of energy today, here are the quick deets:

At my district meeting, we were playing a game, and as I majestically lunged for the ball....it happened. My suit trousers ripped and bursted open...from zipper to belt. Everyone just stopped, had a moment of silence, then all 14 of us were crying laughing, some of us literally crying. I had to tie my jacket around my waist for the rest of the meeting, all the way on the bus and journey home. I had that English suit for nearly my whole mission. It was sad to say goodbye, but now...it shall be burned.

New years eve= massive volleyball tournament and food with most of the missionaries in the zone. Good times.

New years= the 6 of us in Preston chilled at our Bishop's house with his young family and watched movies and had a nerf war. Good times.

Spiritual experience= We knocked on a woman's door named Ellen Smith. She was in tears and immediately showed us her journal. That morning she wrote "Please God, send someone or something to help me". We showed up, taught her, gave her a blessing of physical and spiritual healing...and it was powerful. After the blessing that I pronounced on her, she just sat there, completely dazed, and eventually asked "is it normal to feel this really warm feeling?". It was one of the most reverent experiences I have ever had on my mission, and I was so thankful to be where God wanted me to be.

Other than that, it has been pretty standard missionary life. All our YSA friends are back from their holidays, and now we have actual members and friends who want to work with us. This Saturday we will get our transfer calls, and I will learn of my fate for my last transfer. Anything can happen, so I am excited to see what adventure awaits me.

I love you all, and I will see you shortly!

Peace out

Elder BA

Post Christmas Hangover and New Investigators

Heyo everyone, long time no talk. It was so good to see everyone's bodacious face once again! Even though Tate's teeth are finally growing in and Tallin has metal on his mouth bones and Randi looks like a sunbleached mexican and Tanner has hair on his...face.....everyone pretty much looks the same and I feel I haven't missed too much, and I am stoked to get back into the family flow again. I miss you all.

This week ended off brilliantly. Here are the quick post-christmas deets:

We are making major progress with our two friends John Raven and Serafim. John even picked up Serafim for church on Sunday! It was a double dip as far as investigators go. They are such good friends with us now, and I hope that I can see them baptized before I go. They are so close.

Ok, for more of the food-venture= One night, our friends Saroosh and Mo spontaneously called us and told us to meet them. So we did...and they took us to the newly opened Greek/Mediterranean restaurant in town. It was...incredible. Mum, this is for you. Gourmet lemonade, tomato based chicken liver and greek salad and pita starters, followed by platters of lamb shoulder, greek potatoes, diced herb beef, swordfish skewers, and bowls of char-grilled vegetables, ending off with the always delicious sticky toffee pudding and lemon glaze sponge cake and fresh icecream. By far, one of the best meals I have ever had on my mission, and the price tag was almost as impressive as our friends' generosity.

On a more spiritual note, we had a little miracle happen. We got a referral from mormon.org, named Matthew, so we went over and delivered a Book of Mormon. That was about the extent of the visit, but the next day at church...he totally showed up on his own! He is 19, and is genuinely and independently looking for the truth. His long bus ride to the chapel was proof of that. He said that this was his favorite church he has ever been too, and even invited himself next Sunday! Heavenly Father is definitely looking over the people in this area, and I can see Matthew going far.

Other than that...life has just been good. Even though it's been freezing and covered in ice, we are continuing to work and to have adventures. I want to leave England with no regrets.

I love you all, stay classy, and I will see you at the airport soon. Till then,

peace

Elder BA

Missionary Style Christmas

Hello Hello Hello! Merry Christmas from across the sea. 

Life is sweet, and I love all you hooligans.

This week has been pretty majestic, and the Christmas vibes in the flat are getting pumped! We had a deep Jesus the Christ group study this morning, next to our fireplace and our beautiful Christmas branch, then cleaned the flat, while listening to our traditional and epic "Spirit of the Glen" bagpipes cd.....quite majestically. It may sound lame, but...we are having good times here. I will definitely miss the missionary style Christmas though. Instead of hanging out at a large member

family's home this year, we have decided to spend it with some of the single members of the ward. So on Christmas, I will be at our big ol' Romanian friend, Andrei's flat for when we Skype. His flat is pretty meager, and we are not too sure about the internet connection, but we are praying that it will work out. I will Skype around 3 (my time), but if the connection is rubbish, then we will go to another family's house later that night for backup. So we will see what happens, and I will email you the deets when the time comes. I am so excited to see your faces though. I miss you all.

Other things that happened this week:

*We went to the Temple as a mission again. Again, a very unique experience.

*We had a baptism for Elder Candland and Mongie's Chinese investigator, Guowei! (it sounds exactly like Nacho " Go away...read some books!") It was a very intimate but powerful baptism, and we all know he is going to be a powerful leader in China. He returned to China yesterday, but before he left, he fed the four of us a traditional Chinese meal. It instantly brought back flashbacks of Wrexham, and made me remember how much I love the humble, Chinese people.

*For a ward activity, we had "A Night in Bethlehem". It was actually...super legit. They transformed the chapel into the old Jerusalem setting, and we all wore "traditional" Jewish style clothing, and sat on the floor instead of chairs, and had an amazing Nativity program. It was..a pretty sacred night. Even though people were obviously in costumes, and the props weren't professional...it had a very special feel to it all, and the true spirit of Christmas was very strong. It will definitely be a time I will never forget.

Other than that, Elder Schofield and I have been having some good adventures (we got lost on a different route to the chapel, and ended up walking around in a circle in a forest at night for an hour), and we have been teaching our friends John and Serafim, and they are incredibly progressing.

Thank you mum for the food, and thank you everyone for your love and support and humor. You are the best family I could ask for. Too true. I love you all, and until I see your faces on Thursday, peace out and

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Elder BA

Guowei the man!!!!

 Night in Bethlehem. You have to trust me...everyone else's costume was actually legit. We had to improvise... and cut up a duvet cover. More Nephite than Jewish if you ask me

Christmas season.

Hey everyone, what's happenin. This week was a very interesting week, but Christmas is in the air and the times are good. Here are the deets:
 

The work is getting extremely dead, other than our two solid friends John Raven and Mr. Portuguese Seraphim. They are really our only investigators right now, and everyone else on the streets, and most of the members are all shutting down into holiday mode= don't talk to me. So...we have resorted to having adventures and hanging out with the

remaining YSA here. They are all awesome and super chill. Tonight for FHE, we are having a mega white elephant shindig, so that should be pretty cool. 

As a squad, we have also been making the best out of life by starting a tradition of having a fire every night. Behind our flat is a sketchy little alley way, and it's perfect for a concealed fire. I am glad that I have been saving all my missionary planners, because they are the best fire starters we got. Having a fire has helped bring out that adventure spirit again, and is pumping me up to have some majestic adventures in just a couple short months.

We also got to have another lecture presentation at Bro. Wellingtons house...this time the topic was Temple Symbolism. Dad....you would have loved it. It was incredible. Obviously I cannot share most of it, but my testimony about the eternal nature of temple ordinances (from Adam...to Christ in the middle ages....to the restoration and modern day ceremonies) has strengthened tremendously. With sources from common canon, obscure records and historical artifacts....the true temple ceremony and symbols and clothing has always been the same. The Church is true, enough said, amen.

Other than that, not too much is going on other than our mission temple trip on Wednesday, which I am stoked to go and apply the new focuses and insights I have learned. And I am beyond excited to finally go to the Gilbert temple soon. Not too long left!

I love you all, and I hope you are having a rad Christmas season. Stay fresh, make sure Brien keeps his mustache free of debris. 

Peace

Elder Goodman

p.s. oh yeah, we have a new flat pet....we named him Sanj. He is majestic

Oh Christmas tree.

Hey everyone! Greetings from the land of hail. This has been a crazy week of weather, and let's just say this bones weather is making me miss Arizona even more. This week seemed to blow right by in a blur,
and I don't have too much to write about (even though all the inside jokes and stories would fill up too many pages).

Ok, here are the basic need-to-know deets:

With Christmas around the corner...it was proper that our flat needed a christmas tree. So, Schofield and I went to Avenham Park right across from our flat and got one (to be more specific, I kicked it
down and we dragged it to our flat). Hopefully the picture shows the true character of our Christmas branch. With Sanj as the star, our flat has never been more majestic.

We have a new investigator named John Raven. He has 15 guitars. We had a jam session. He has been to Utah. He loves mormons. He has a yacht.
He is going to be baptized soon. He is awesome. Enough said. Amen.

Other than that, this week was been full of walking in the dark (it's now getting dark at flippin 4:30), enduring the hail, and in the middle of all that, trying to convince people on the streets that Jesus Christ, the family or even Christmas is important. Not gonna
lie, the work has been extremely rough. Everyone either bashes, is Muslim, or simply doesn't care. However, Mormon's powerful words in
Moroni 9:6 is contantly ringing in our ears, and we are continuing to do our part.

I love you all, and I hope everyone is as happy and well as I am. I have heard it time and time again, but I have finally received a strong testimony for myself= we are happiest most when we are serving
others. That is our Preston Sqaudron's focus this Christmas season, and we have never been happier. Try it out for yourself.

I am stoked to see all your faces in a couple weeks, but until then...peace out!

Elder BA

So Cold!

Power stance.

Make sure you zoom in on all the details. You can't get more majestic.

The mighty Sanj.

The Preston Squadron. Party of 6. 

Thanksgiving in Preston.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, mermaids and mermen...hello! In the words of Joe Dirt, "Life's a garden....dig it". And I am diggin it right now. We got our transfer calls, and the Preston squad is all staying together! You all might have heard our battle cry across the world when we received the news. Needless to say, we are stoked to spend Christmas together. 

On other news...I got my trunky call and death letter. The "3 months to go" and "what are your flight plans?" hit me hard. Not gonna lie, it felt super weird...kinda surreal. But it's here and it's happening! Ok, instead of ranting about how I am coping with the trunkiness, I'll just give you this week's deets instead:

Thanksgiving was actually really really good. Way better than last year. Even the hosts are a bit wack, they made some incredible food! A full American Thanksgiving spread, with over a dozen platters of different types of european/american dishes, good ol' turkey, and then some of the best ice cream and truest pumpkin pie I have had my entire mission. 

We had another day over at Bro. Wellington's up in Ribchester. I am not sure if I told you about him last time, but he spent over 6 years in Saudi Arabia, mapping out all the possible routes that Lehi and Nephi and the family took over their 8 years in the wilderness, and finding all the landmarks that perfectly correlated with the record in the Book of Mormon. He gave us the rest of the presentation...and it absolutely amazed me. Basically...the Book of Mormon only gives us a rough outline of what happened, but 8 years of traveling leaves a lot of room to read in between the lines. I won't go into detail in this email, but one thing I learned....Lehi and the company were not alone, especially at Nephi's Harbor. The study of the culture and the land and the hints in the text testify to that, and it now makes it so much more interesting to read. 

We also got to have tea with our Saudi friend Saroosh. Once again, he fed us an incredible home cooked meal, with more traditional Mediterranean and Arabian dishes. He gave us a history lesson and cooked us some samples of the "blessed foods" (the foods that most of the biblical prophets ate). Between Saroosh and Bro Wellington, I have so much more appreciation for the "old world" cultures, and it fascinates me. Hopefully the tension over there eases up sometime soon, cause I want to explore it for myself now.

Other than that, the work has been going pretty well. A little slow, but we are still teaching some good people. With Christmas coming up and the death letter and all of us sticking together, it's been a bit hard to focus, but we are doing our best and working on. 

I love you all, and I can't wait to see your faces in a couple weeks. 

Till then, stay fresh, 

(And I challenge all the boys in the family to grow the most bodacious facial hair that you can for the skype sesh)

and peace out!

Elder BA

A temple trip and spiritual nourishment.

Konnichiwa! And I love you all. This was an incredible week here in Preston. Here are the deets:

On Tuesday, we joined our dear friend Elder Maljanen at the temple with President Ulrich for his farewell. We had a sunny, warm, peaceful, morning endowment session, just the four of us.  Afterwards, while still dressed in our robes, President Ulrich took us into one of the private rooms of the temple...and we had an amazing question and answer session. Powerful revelation. President Ulrich unfolded so many things that I had questions about, and we all received some incredible insights about the temple ordinances that I will remember for the rest of my life. It was a sacred experience to say the least. 

This week, we also had a conference with a General Authority, President Dyches. Once again...another experience I will never forget. 

More on the fun side, we got to hang with all the YSA and we had a chill movie night. Popcorn and homemade sushi, skadoosh. Yuki came with us too, and now she is super tight with most of the other people our age here in the Preston ward. I love it. We are all from all over the world, but it's amazing how we can all just chill together as if we were friends for a long time. 

Saturday, we had the baptism for miss Yuki! It totally topped off my week of spiritual experiences. Elder Candland baptized her, and she came out of the water happy as ever. After they both changed into dry clothes, we performed a song for her. With all the missionaries in my district, we sang the "I like to look for rainbows..." song (yuki's favorite)...and we did it in Japanese!!! With different parts and much needed practice...it turned out beautifully...and Yuki couldn't hold back her bucket of tears. Once again..I will never forget it. 

With all that being said, and finding some new and incredible prepared people and having Hamblin and Lauener spend the night again and getting revenge on them from past pranks (we slipped some laxatives into their breakfast burritos...mwahaha), this week has been awesome. Life is good, and I can't believe it's almost December. 

I miss you all, and I can't wait to see your faces soon. Thanks for all the lovin, and thank you for all being tight! You are a bodacious family.

I love you all, and peace out

Elder BA

The Majestic Sanj.

 Yuki's Baptism

  Our Spirit Animals.