Dear Family,
Well I had a great first week in Burton. Lots of things are different from Kidderminster, though the first and most obvious one is that I don't know the area very well. It's also organized very differently from Kidderminster. Kidderminster is almost like a big circle with the town center in the middle and everything else leading away from that, but Burton is almost like a couple small town centers with attaching residential areas and just more spread out. Kidderminster was very compact while Burton feels sort of stretched out.
The next big difference is that it feels like we don't really work that hard, which is kinda nice because it means it's a little more relaxed, but at the same time makes me wonder if I can work harder. Along with this though, Burton is a lot easier to have success in it seems. With Elder Mower we had like 3-4/12 weeks with our 10/10/10 goal reached, and even though Elder Duke and I walk like half the day (normally in Kidderminster we cycle and stop people as we bike) we still got it, although we did get the last 3 Books in like an hour tracting a street he and the previous Elder prayed about. I don't know, it's just a little unsettling for me to move from hard area where you work and sometimes get only 4 Books on the week to walking around and talking to like 30 people a day and still getting your 10s and having more investigators at church than I've ever had. To be fair in Kidderminster I think the highest we ever had was 1 at church at a time, but we still beat that here in Burton with 2.
Another massive change is that instead of having 2 Dinner Appointments a week with pretty much the same 2 families, we have a dinner appointment almost every night of the week, and we have to tell people no sometimes because we can't do a night. At least now I'm practicing eating all sorts of different foods not made by me, and I do feel like I'm getting a lot better about not being a picky eater. It is just a big change though, and it's weird because I'm used to having a dinner break to relax and think, not talk to families and stuff.
We have an American family here named the Manors and they're pretty cool, although the kids are a bit crazy. We had Mexican with them last night and that was just kind of crazy because, well, it's England where Mexican food is not the most common thing.
Elder Duke is pretty cool, he actually reminds me a lot of Alex which is fun but creepy at the same time sometimes. He's from Arkansas so he has the whole Southern attitude and upbringing which is different because he actually knows what it's like to grow up in the Bible belt. Last night though we went tracting for the first time (another big difference, I think Elder Mower and I tracted at least every other day for an hour or more) and he kinda had a salesmen vibe which is very plausible because he worked as a door-to-door salesmen before his mission and it really annoyed me. He also will sometimes talk over me, but that might be because his last companion was a greenie and he's used to having to do most of the talking. Hopefully I can work those out, I guess that's why we have companionship inventory, although it seems a little useless as the last step of weekly planning because usually I'm either tired enough of planning I just want it over with or weekly planning was so annoying for one reason or another and I don't want to express how I feel because I'll just want to lash out. This weeks weekly planning was good, but previous ones were not so easy.
Well I still feel sort of pessimistic and I don't want to be, maybe it's just a side-effect of working in an area with almost no success, or maybe I just have some Spiritual growth to do. Or maybe there's lots of good things and I just focus on the negative. I don't know.
I do hope everything's going great back home. Lauren looked really creepy with the black hair, don't let her dye it that way ever. It's getting very cold here as well, especially when it rains it just gets cold all the way into you. So, hurray for 5 months of cold on their way, and a Sun that goes down(eventually) at 4-5. Daylight Savings Time, whenever that starts, is really going to kill. It gets dark at around 6:30 now, so it'll be dusk at like 5 pretty soon.
I love you all and I hope you all have a great week!
Ryan
Monday, October 25, 2010
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
October 19, 2010
Dear Family,
I have been transferred to Burton-on-Trent in the Lichfield Stake/Zone. We found out Saturday night and transfers was yesterday so that was different. It was especially different because normally we don't know we're leaving on Sunday and this Sunday meeting I was able to tell everyone. We had no heating in our building so we abbreviated church to Priesthood and Relief Society and Sacrament Meeting, although in Sacrament Meeting I bore my testimony after the Sacrament and then we closed.
It was hard to say goodbye to everyone in Kidderminster, I realized that everything I associated with missions and missionary work was tied into that city. I know almost every street and all the paths from place to place. Yesterday coming to Burton I felt like a greenie again, just didn't feel like I was continuing my mission or something, like all my knowledge had been sucked away. I was also able to visit Ann one last time (she went to church near London returning from visiting one of her daughters) Sunday night, and that was really good. Very glad she's in Kidderminster and that she wants to help the missionary work along. We talked about politics and she told me I should get into it, and who knows? I certainly haven't figured out what I want to do.
My new companion is Elder Duke and so far it's been a blast. Just so refreshing to be with a new Elder and hard worker. He's the district leader here and my dad Elder Shrubb is one of my zone leaders so it's pretty fun (dad is trainer in mission language). So far since 6:00 last night (it's now 11:16) we've given out 2 books and have 1 new investigator, which is almost half a week's finding efforts in Kidderminster. Burton or maybe just Elder Duke is just awwww relaxing and enjoyable. So hopefully this'll be the great happy and peaceful section of my mission (well I hope all the rest of it is) and that I'll have great fun and good success here.
President Ogden said during transfers if you've had hard times or struggled with something on your mission, don't think about it, don't dwell on it, Your Mission Begins Today. So I'm going to try and apply that here in Burton. I do have to say I kind of missed Elder Mower when I was leaving transfers but now... I'm grateful to be where I am.
Well I don't know the area and I don't know any of our investigators yet but hopefully soon I'll have some good stories and events to tell. It's definitely weird moving into a new area and setting everything up, Kidderminster was just a small apartment in a complex with 12 apartments, but Burton accommodations are a small house. Which is pretty nice for missionaries. Everything in England is pretty compact though, I can only imagine a couple living in this sort of house.
Can't really think of anything else but I love all of you and I'm grateful for all your prayers and advice and everything else.
Love,
Ryan
I have been transferred to Burton-on-Trent in the Lichfield Stake/Zone. We found out Saturday night and transfers was yesterday so that was different. It was especially different because normally we don't know we're leaving on Sunday and this Sunday meeting I was able to tell everyone. We had no heating in our building so we abbreviated church to Priesthood and Relief Society and Sacrament Meeting, although in Sacrament Meeting I bore my testimony after the Sacrament and then we closed.
It was hard to say goodbye to everyone in Kidderminster, I realized that everything I associated with missions and missionary work was tied into that city. I know almost every street and all the paths from place to place. Yesterday coming to Burton I felt like a greenie again, just didn't feel like I was continuing my mission or something, like all my knowledge had been sucked away. I was also able to visit Ann one last time (she went to church near London returning from visiting one of her daughters) Sunday night, and that was really good. Very glad she's in Kidderminster and that she wants to help the missionary work along. We talked about politics and she told me I should get into it, and who knows? I certainly haven't figured out what I want to do.
My new companion is Elder Duke and so far it's been a blast. Just so refreshing to be with a new Elder and hard worker. He's the district leader here and my dad Elder Shrubb is one of my zone leaders so it's pretty fun (dad is trainer in mission language). So far since 6:00 last night (it's now 11:16) we've given out 2 books and have 1 new investigator, which is almost half a week's finding efforts in Kidderminster. Burton or maybe just Elder Duke is just awwww relaxing and enjoyable. So hopefully this'll be the great happy and peaceful section of my mission (well I hope all the rest of it is) and that I'll have great fun and good success here.
President Ogden said during transfers if you've had hard times or struggled with something on your mission, don't think about it, don't dwell on it, Your Mission Begins Today. So I'm going to try and apply that here in Burton. I do have to say I kind of missed Elder Mower when I was leaving transfers but now... I'm grateful to be where I am.
Well I don't know the area and I don't know any of our investigators yet but hopefully soon I'll have some good stories and events to tell. It's definitely weird moving into a new area and setting everything up, Kidderminster was just a small apartment in a complex with 12 apartments, but Burton accommodations are a small house. Which is pretty nice for missionaries. Everything in England is pretty compact though, I can only imagine a couple living in this sort of house.
Can't really think of anything else but I love all of you and I'm grateful for all your prayers and advice and everything else.
Love,
Ryan
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
August 2, 2010
Well Dear Family,
This has been an interesting 5 days. I feel like I'm on Elder Shrubb withdrawal, and it's hard/weird to work with a different missionary permanently, unlike exchanges where whatever happened happened and then Elder Shrubb would come back. It's just hard getting used to a different attitude and personality all the time, climatizing to Elder Shrubb was ok since I didn't really know any better at all, especially in field missionary work. Also just switching from having district leader companion to being junior of a team is a weird switch.
Shona is doing ok, I think she has a testimony or at least an inkling of one, she did struggle with the idea of no coffee and smoking and while I think she knows she needs to stop using them, she doesn't see how she can. She also flaked out on church Sunday because she's just afraid of church and I think trying to keep the Word of Wisdom and all. We are going to have FHE with the Branch President's family and her at President McCall's house tonight, so hopefully that will work out.
Ann has like 4 missionary projects going on really, she has her friend that didn't come to church this week because of a family B-day party but is interested and wants to come next week, another friend she periodically has lunch with that is a less-active that said those years of activity were the best of her life but the church was too restricting, her daughter and her partner who are sorta warming up to the church, the daughter more than the partner, and her grandson who she has a close bond to who I've met a few times. He's really cool and likes and respects us, but he would have to change a lot to accept the gospel, but we'll work with Ann on all those groups. She really is an awesome recent convert.
Well that was a fun synopsis. Umm on the other hand of things I really liked the Carter pictures, do you think I could have some for my family album that are standard photos? I'm afraid the ones of him and Piper will bleed or get ripped and I can't put them in my album. Also I found out if you want you can send me CDs with conference talks so if you want to collect some about missionary work, or some from Elder Holland that would be cool.
So yeah right now is a little harder than when Elder Shrubb did mostly everything and I trusted him because he's such a good hard worker and now I'm trying to figure out how I can be the best junior companion possible. Ehhhh I'll survive. I just need to get used to the changes and not stress and not compare trainer to follow-up trainer and the steal the best of both.
I think I also neglected to say that Monday is P-Day now so that'll be an interesting adjustment, so maybe Sunday night emails are the thing to do now.
Well I have more time so I'll tell you all about my super dodgy Priesthood lesson.
So we had no investigators at church (again) and so we were in Priesthood and one of the Elders got up to teach the creation. And like the first sentence he said was "And now some of what we'll talk about is controversial, and yes we will talk about the Big Bang Theory" So I knew this was gonna be terrible from the beginning. Well it only got worse when he handed out blown up photocopies of Facsimile 2 in the Pearl of Great Price, so from then I knew we gonna talk about Kolob. So by now I'm kind of glad we had no investigators show up for this lesson and I'll just share some of the things we covered. Supposedly in a letter to his brother Joseph Smith said that Jesus has been working for the Father for 2,555,000,000 years (2 Billion), that the Earth has been around for that long, if you divide that number by 365,000 (Kolob time for something) it comes out to 7,000 or the amount of time the Earth is supposedly been here, in Kolob time. That only has so many confusing issues, the first of which I hit was that the Earth takes 365 days and a quarter to make a full revolution so why not 365,250 for that figure, and other things. Then he briefly talked about Ex Nihilo (out of nothing) and how the Earth was organized not made out of nothing. That one was pretty standard knowledge I think, but still kinda random. Then he talked about 'Gaia' or the spirit of the Earth and I'm not sure if he was implying it was sentient or not, but it was just weird. Then he talked about how when the Earth was made it was originally Pangea and how that changed after the flood or something, and then at the end as we were running out of time we started talking about evolution.
What did you learn last Sunday?
So yep, life is interesting here in England.
Love all!
Ryan
This has been an interesting 5 days. I feel like I'm on Elder Shrubb withdrawal, and it's hard/weird to work with a different missionary permanently, unlike exchanges where whatever happened happened and then Elder Shrubb would come back. It's just hard getting used to a different attitude and personality all the time, climatizing to Elder Shrubb was ok since I didn't really know any better at all, especially in field missionary work. Also just switching from having district leader companion to being junior of a team is a weird switch.
Shona is doing ok, I think she has a testimony or at least an inkling of one, she did struggle with the idea of no coffee and smoking and while I think she knows she needs to stop using them, she doesn't see how she can. She also flaked out on church Sunday because she's just afraid of church and I think trying to keep the Word of Wisdom and all. We are going to have FHE with the Branch President's family and her at President McCall's house tonight, so hopefully that will work out.
Ann has like 4 missionary projects going on really, she has her friend that didn't come to church this week because of a family B-day party but is interested and wants to come next week, another friend she periodically has lunch with that is a less-active that said those years of activity were the best of her life but the church was too restricting, her daughter and her partner who are sorta warming up to the church, the daughter more than the partner, and her grandson who she has a close bond to who I've met a few times. He's really cool and likes and respects us, but he would have to change a lot to accept the gospel, but we'll work with Ann on all those groups. She really is an awesome recent convert.
Well that was a fun synopsis. Umm on the other hand of things I really liked the Carter pictures, do you think I could have some for my family album that are standard photos? I'm afraid the ones of him and Piper will bleed or get ripped and I can't put them in my album. Also I found out if you want you can send me CDs with conference talks so if you want to collect some about missionary work, or some from Elder Holland that would be cool.
So yeah right now is a little harder than when Elder Shrubb did mostly everything and I trusted him because he's such a good hard worker and now I'm trying to figure out how I can be the best junior companion possible. Ehhhh I'll survive. I just need to get used to the changes and not stress and not compare trainer to follow-up trainer and the steal the best of both.
I think I also neglected to say that Monday is P-Day now so that'll be an interesting adjustment, so maybe Sunday night emails are the thing to do now.
Well I have more time so I'll tell you all about my super dodgy Priesthood lesson.
So we had no investigators at church (again) and so we were in Priesthood and one of the Elders got up to teach the creation. And like the first sentence he said was "And now some of what we'll talk about is controversial, and yes we will talk about the Big Bang Theory" So I knew this was gonna be terrible from the beginning. Well it only got worse when he handed out blown up photocopies of Facsimile 2 in the Pearl of Great Price, so from then I knew we gonna talk about Kolob. So by now I'm kind of glad we had no investigators show up for this lesson and I'll just share some of the things we covered. Supposedly in a letter to his brother Joseph Smith said that Jesus has been working for the Father for 2,555,000,000 years (2 Billion), that the Earth has been around for that long, if you divide that number by 365,000 (Kolob time for something) it comes out to 7,000 or the amount of time the Earth is supposedly been here, in Kolob time. That only has so many confusing issues, the first of which I hit was that the Earth takes 365 days and a quarter to make a full revolution so why not 365,250 for that figure, and other things. Then he briefly talked about Ex Nihilo (out of nothing) and how the Earth was organized not made out of nothing. That one was pretty standard knowledge I think, but still kinda random. Then he talked about 'Gaia' or the spirit of the Earth and I'm not sure if he was implying it was sentient or not, but it was just weird. Then he talked about how when the Earth was made it was originally Pangea and how that changed after the flood or something, and then at the end as we were running out of time we started talking about evolution.
What did you learn last Sunday?
So yep, life is interesting here in England.
Love all!
Ryan
July 28, 2010
So I'm tired and it's transfers and so I'll just write a little and then maybe catch up next week.
Elder Shrubb is leaving(well, left) to be a Zone Leader in another Zone, and I now have Elder Mower as my senior companion. His name is pronounced M-ow(as in, pain ouch)-er so it's not like lawnmower. Ummm things are looking better here in Kidderminster, Shona and her children are looking to be baptised on the 14th of August (the lady with the child in the hospital) we've taught her maybe 2 or 3 times since last email and she seems really solid on everything, we've even gotten past 2 of the big 4 commandments (still have word of wisdom and tithing to go so wish us luck) and Ann our awesome recent convert (from before my time) has a friend she's bringing to church that hopefully we'll start teaching and she'll want to learn and be baptized! So I'm trying to be excited. I don't really know Elder Mower well enough to be pumped or sad that it's changed but everyone is like aww yeah he's awesome so I'm excited-ish right now.
It's a little weird to know that I'm 1/17th of my mission in the field. Not really sure how I feel about that and I'm not counting down the time it's just a fact that presents itself. It's weird to think BYU will start up soon and stuff will start happening in Provo and stuff but it's cool here, and as soon as I sleep and don't have a headache it'll be grand. I do need to call President Ogden today to see if we can waste out err, teach investigators on a guided tour of a place called Bishop's Woods. By the way, last Saturday Elder Shrubb and I went to Aston Manor Hall, so you can like Wiki that and be like "Yep, our son went there on his mission. Cause he's a waster." If I haven't said before, wasters are people in the field that don't really work. We did have a reason to go though so yeah it's all good. Oh man I just kinda want to sleep, and it doesn't help that I'm sorta senior companion for a couple of days. I'm also working on humility cause I fear I'm becoming a striver (someone who wants leadership for selfish reasons) at least in part, because I DO have a want to be recognized as talented and a leader etc. At the same time part of me is like you fool that means more work, just chill out and try to learn. It'll be interesting to have this transfer without being a district leader junior companion, which is pretty nice. I'm still a little worried that it'll be weird to adjust to a new senior. I feel like if it was a junior it'd be easy to adjust to but since this kinda changes how I do things because he'll do things differently it'll be interesting. I'm just glad I'm not getting a dead companion. (dead as in let me off the mission bus now[missionaries that have served but are done now are also referred to as dead and if you were their last companion you 'killed' them])
So yeah, also if I never said before Kidderminster is REALLY hilly, and Elder Shrubb loved to go as fast as possible up the hills, so that was kinda a pain. Oh well, it's all pretty good.
By the way, odd request, but can you dig in my Brother Parker BoM manuals for where it talks about Satan's plan? It's organized by the parts of the Book of Mormon so look in areas that correspond to parts of the Book of Mormon that talk about the Pre-Existance, like maybe Alma 37-43 area. I think somewhere in First or Second Nephi it also says something like that so maybe try that. I wanna know what book of Bruce R McKonkie he wrote about it in, it's the part that talks about how Satan's plan was for us to have no agency but to live in sin basically, I think he calls it a "philosophical impossibility" so maybe just try googling that with Bruce R McKonkie. Not very important, but I'm curious about it. Well Love and take Care!
Elder Ryan Baxter
Elder Shrubb is leaving(well, left) to be a Zone Leader in another Zone, and I now have Elder Mower as my senior companion. His name is pronounced M-ow(as in, pain ouch)-er so it's not like lawnmower. Ummm things are looking better here in Kidderminster, Shona and her children are looking to be baptised on the 14th of August (the lady with the child in the hospital) we've taught her maybe 2 or 3 times since last email and she seems really solid on everything, we've even gotten past 2 of the big 4 commandments (still have word of wisdom and tithing to go so wish us luck) and Ann our awesome recent convert (from before my time) has a friend she's bringing to church that hopefully we'll start teaching and she'll want to learn and be baptized! So I'm trying to be excited. I don't really know Elder Mower well enough to be pumped or sad that it's changed but everyone is like aww yeah he's awesome so I'm excited-ish right now.
It's a little weird to know that I'm 1/17th of my mission in the field. Not really sure how I feel about that and I'm not counting down the time it's just a fact that presents itself. It's weird to think BYU will start up soon and stuff will start happening in Provo and stuff but it's cool here, and as soon as I sleep and don't have a headache it'll be grand. I do need to call President Ogden today to see if we can waste out err, teach investigators on a guided tour of a place called Bishop's Woods. By the way, last Saturday Elder Shrubb and I went to Aston Manor Hall, so you can like Wiki that and be like "Yep, our son went there on his mission. Cause he's a waster." If I haven't said before, wasters are people in the field that don't really work. We did have a reason to go though so yeah it's all good. Oh man I just kinda want to sleep, and it doesn't help that I'm sorta senior companion for a couple of days. I'm also working on humility cause I fear I'm becoming a striver (someone who wants leadership for selfish reasons) at least in part, because I DO have a want to be recognized as talented and a leader etc. At the same time part of me is like you fool that means more work, just chill out and try to learn. It'll be interesting to have this transfer without being a district leader junior companion, which is pretty nice. I'm still a little worried that it'll be weird to adjust to a new senior. I feel like if it was a junior it'd be easy to adjust to but since this kinda changes how I do things because he'll do things differently it'll be interesting. I'm just glad I'm not getting a dead companion. (dead as in let me off the mission bus now[missionaries that have served but are done now are also referred to as dead and if you were their last companion you 'killed' them])
So yeah, also if I never said before Kidderminster is REALLY hilly, and Elder Shrubb loved to go as fast as possible up the hills, so that was kinda a pain. Oh well, it's all pretty good.
By the way, odd request, but can you dig in my Brother Parker BoM manuals for where it talks about Satan's plan? It's organized by the parts of the Book of Mormon so look in areas that correspond to parts of the Book of Mormon that talk about the Pre-Existance, like maybe Alma 37-43 area. I think somewhere in First or Second Nephi it also says something like that so maybe try that. I wanna know what book of Bruce R McKonkie he wrote about it in, it's the part that talks about how Satan's plan was for us to have no agency but to live in sin basically, I think he calls it a "philosophical impossibility" so maybe just try googling that with Bruce R McKonkie. Not very important, but I'm curious about it. Well Love and take Care!
Elder Ryan Baxter
July 20, 2010
Alright so I've been rebuked by Alisa and last week was a non-emailer, really. So to start I'll make up by explaining what we did that caused my email to be a bit short. So we had a zone P-day where we all go into Birmingham, eat at a Chinese buffet and then go bowling. Well we were meant to be there at like 12:30 but there was a bomb threat in a Birmingham station so Elder Shrubb and I had to wait an hour to try and get on, then we had to run and catch a bus instead, so we got there a bit late. The good news is that I was able to quickly pig out on Chinese for 45 min to and hour so I felt decently compensated for my sufferings, though when we left I was thinking of getting a bit more. I gained weight at the MTC and here in Birmingham but it's plateau'd at around 180 so that's not too bad. I do plan on losing 10 of those either right before or right after the end of my mission though. But that's so far away I don't really care. It's on the to-do list whenever that day happens.
But I digress, so we then went bowling which was pretty sweet. It's always great to see all the other missionaries in the zone, and we had a bit of fun. I ended up being the grand champion of our two lanes with I think a score of 132 which is my life top I think, so that was nice. It was a fun break from all the monotony of what we do but it would later turn out we had a bit of such activities in the week.
I remember Dan asked me some questions but I forgot them all sorta and I forgot to bring them with me, but I'll try to answer them to the best of my memory. Kidderminster is a smallish town (it's very urban yet compact in the center areas so I though it was kinda big) and the population is mostly white English people. The only real minority is Polish people but they're not really any more receptive to the gospel so no dice there. Our mission has our own little program thingy called 10/10/10/20 Which means in the first 10 minutes of leaving the flat you speak to someone, you speak to 10 people each day, and you place 10 BoMs a week. Obviously the second 2 10s are encouraged to be exceeded. the 20 is 20 sit down lessons with investigators, but that one is like the dream goal. Our zone, however, has had 4 weeks of perfect 10/10/10s which is like mission history so we're trying to get a perfect transfer.
Yesterday Elder Shrubb and I had a down-up day. Our most promising investigator dropped us because of her issues with her partner, cause she decided it would just be easier to try and work things out with him again, and she said she'll keep in touch, so that was nice and ugh. But the rest of the day was actually pretty great, our other good investigator apologized and explained why she wasn't at church (she was at the hospital with her daughter) so it's not like she's a waster and we had a great lesson with her, and we place 5 BoMs in 1 day so it was pretty good, we met a lady named Denise who's CoE(Church of England) who when we told her about Joseph Smith's First Vision was like 'I never heard of that before! Isn't that wonderful!' So I was just kinda like whoah, is she for real? She seems pretty golden and hopefully she'll read and pray by tomorrow when we'll go to teach her.
The other big highlight of this past week was a stake barbecue here in Kidderminster. Lots of good food, we had a family we invited from just around the area come in and speak to us about the church, they seemed to have a great experience, and I had real Hamburgers, for non-extortionist prices as much as I wanted. We also had a fun and completely chaotic game of football(soccer) where I got tackled by a former professional rugby player, so that was fun. It wasn't a real tackle but I did get knocked off my feet. So that was like 4 hours of wasting out that was sorta justified, with other missionaries there too. We have 2 sisters in our zone so I feel a little bad for them being so isolated, but Elder Shrubb told me sister missionaries do all sorts of weird things that sorta go out of the bounds of regular mission rules, so I don't feel too bad anymore.
I happened to go on an exchange this week out of Kidderminster so that was fun, I went with one of my zone leaders Elder Zito from Italy to his area of Harborne in Birmingham. It was a good experience but it made me totally jealous because we stopped two ladies as they were going in their door, and they accepted a Book of Mormon and an invitation to come to church just like that. We also taught a couple where the husband (and this was their first sit down lesson) was trying to understand how long it would take to be baptized. They're Indian and there's a bit of a language barrier, but they're pretty much golden and I was just like, why do you get to teach these awesome people while people in Kiddy just hate the missionaries?
Well such is life as a missionary. Apparently President Hinckley was a mission president here in Birmingham because I heard a fun story about how one of the Elders here then got hit by a car, broke his leg and the guy that hit him came out apologized and then healed his leg. Well they told their Mission President and he told them to stay there until he could come. So later that night he came and rebuked the spirit in the Elder's leg and it snapped again. So, fun stuff happens here. One thing I don't understand is that in Louisiana I don't think I even knew of people that professed to be spiritualists. Like some kids might have fooled around with it and stuff but I didn't know people that like professed to be that religion. So that's one interesting thing to get used to as a missionary here in England.
Can't think of anything else exciting to tell you, we do the same stuff each week, though I did have a weird realization that like, as far as incentives to come home go, I don't have any huge thing to look forward to. This stems from thinking about 2 missionaries in my district that are dying this transfer and getting a bit trunky. I know one of them has been struggling to stay focused on the work and it makes me wonder how I'll handle it. I'll definitely do my best, but I realized that like at least now looking at it, there's stuff I'll definitely want to do immediately and there's all of you who can't wait to see me but like really if today was my last day I'd be like well I guess I could go home. I thought maybe I could trick myself into thinking a mission is 4 years long and then going 'wow! 2 years in! Only half-Oh I'm done. Ok.' So maybe I'll do that, or I'll just try to die the best I can.
Well Elder Shrubb just got up, so Love, Take Care, i forgot I was supposed to write more about what he's like, Don't worry Alisa I love you and enjoyed your rebuke, take care, if Christa wants to include the Tab Choir CD of like American music I'd like that in her package she was planning to send me, if she already sent it then oh well.
Love all,
Ryan Baxter
But I digress, so we then went bowling which was pretty sweet. It's always great to see all the other missionaries in the zone, and we had a bit of fun. I ended up being the grand champion of our two lanes with I think a score of 132 which is my life top I think, so that was nice. It was a fun break from all the monotony of what we do but it would later turn out we had a bit of such activities in the week.
I remember Dan asked me some questions but I forgot them all sorta and I forgot to bring them with me, but I'll try to answer them to the best of my memory. Kidderminster is a smallish town (it's very urban yet compact in the center areas so I though it was kinda big) and the population is mostly white English people. The only real minority is Polish people but they're not really any more receptive to the gospel so no dice there. Our mission has our own little program thingy called 10/10/10/20 Which means in the first 10 minutes of leaving the flat you speak to someone, you speak to 10 people each day, and you place 10 BoMs a week. Obviously the second 2 10s are encouraged to be exceeded. the 20 is 20 sit down lessons with investigators, but that one is like the dream goal. Our zone, however, has had 4 weeks of perfect 10/10/10s which is like mission history so we're trying to get a perfect transfer.
Yesterday Elder Shrubb and I had a down-up day. Our most promising investigator dropped us because of her issues with her partner, cause she decided it would just be easier to try and work things out with him again, and she said she'll keep in touch, so that was nice and ugh. But the rest of the day was actually pretty great, our other good investigator apologized and explained why she wasn't at church (she was at the hospital with her daughter) so it's not like she's a waster and we had a great lesson with her, and we place 5 BoMs in 1 day so it was pretty good, we met a lady named Denise who's CoE(Church of England) who when we told her about Joseph Smith's First Vision was like 'I never heard of that before! Isn't that wonderful!' So I was just kinda like whoah, is she for real? She seems pretty golden and hopefully she'll read and pray by tomorrow when we'll go to teach her.
The other big highlight of this past week was a stake barbecue here in Kidderminster. Lots of good food, we had a family we invited from just around the area come in and speak to us about the church, they seemed to have a great experience, and I had real Hamburgers, for non-extortionist prices as much as I wanted. We also had a fun and completely chaotic game of football(soccer) where I got tackled by a former professional rugby player, so that was fun. It wasn't a real tackle but I did get knocked off my feet. So that was like 4 hours of wasting out that was sorta justified, with other missionaries there too. We have 2 sisters in our zone so I feel a little bad for them being so isolated, but Elder Shrubb told me sister missionaries do all sorts of weird things that sorta go out of the bounds of regular mission rules, so I don't feel too bad anymore.
I happened to go on an exchange this week out of Kidderminster so that was fun, I went with one of my zone leaders Elder Zito from Italy to his area of Harborne in Birmingham. It was a good experience but it made me totally jealous because we stopped two ladies as they were going in their door, and they accepted a Book of Mormon and an invitation to come to church just like that. We also taught a couple where the husband (and this was their first sit down lesson) was trying to understand how long it would take to be baptized. They're Indian and there's a bit of a language barrier, but they're pretty much golden and I was just like, why do you get to teach these awesome people while people in Kiddy just hate the missionaries?
Well such is life as a missionary. Apparently President Hinckley was a mission president here in Birmingham because I heard a fun story about how one of the Elders here then got hit by a car, broke his leg and the guy that hit him came out apologized and then healed his leg. Well they told their Mission President and he told them to stay there until he could come. So later that night he came and rebuked the spirit in the Elder's leg and it snapped again. So, fun stuff happens here. One thing I don't understand is that in Louisiana I don't think I even knew of people that professed to be spiritualists. Like some kids might have fooled around with it and stuff but I didn't know people that like professed to be that religion. So that's one interesting thing to get used to as a missionary here in England.
Can't think of anything else exciting to tell you, we do the same stuff each week, though I did have a weird realization that like, as far as incentives to come home go, I don't have any huge thing to look forward to. This stems from thinking about 2 missionaries in my district that are dying this transfer and getting a bit trunky. I know one of them has been struggling to stay focused on the work and it makes me wonder how I'll handle it. I'll definitely do my best, but I realized that like at least now looking at it, there's stuff I'll definitely want to do immediately and there's all of you who can't wait to see me but like really if today was my last day I'd be like well I guess I could go home. I thought maybe I could trick myself into thinking a mission is 4 years long and then going 'wow! 2 years in! Only half-Oh I'm done. Ok.' So maybe I'll do that, or I'll just try to die the best I can.
Well Elder Shrubb just got up, so Love, Take Care, i forgot I was supposed to write more about what he's like, Don't worry Alisa I love you and enjoyed your rebuke, take care, if Christa wants to include the Tab Choir CD of like American music I'd like that in her package she was planning to send me, if she already sent it then oh well.
Love all,
Ryan Baxter
July 13, 2010
For Mom and Dad:
I remember you talking about how Christa would write about how much she loves you and didn't appreciate you and stuff and how her mission helped her see that. I was wondering when that would happen for me, and I think I had the first example of that this week.
We had a dinner appointment with a couple, their daughter and their granddaughter and they're all active but they've had struggles. After the daughter and granddaughter left the table we talked about life and stuff and how the daughter had left the church and struggled but had come back, and then the mother talked about all 3 of her children had left the church for awhile but had come back and how that seemed normal during the teenage years. My companion also agreed sorta just talking about how he didn't go to church for a long time for show jumping and other stuff and how as a kid his aunt would get them to drink coffee and wine and stuff when they visited her.
I don't know if all that made sense, but it really made me realize, there was never a time where I really doubted the church. I might have said, the big bang theory makes sense, evolution makes sense, and I don't know how they fit in the creation, but there's gotta be a way. And even stuff like that, it never really seemed plausible to me that the church wouldn't or couldn't be true, and I still feel a little bad about the one time I stayed home from church cause I was sick and I played video games instead. So really, I'm just really grateful whatever you did to keep our entire family in the church from what I could tell all the time and how much you loved us and were patient with us. Elder Shrubb will talk about some of the things his mom would do like read about Laman and Lemuel when they were untidy, and how clothes left in 1 spot in their rooms for a week would get donated to like salvation army, and I just go, 'wow, glad my mom was patient with me and just loved me and encouraged me to be clean and stuff.' I don't know, I'm just glad that I knew you loved me so much and that you still love me and I think as I'll see more families that have some things missing, I'll see even more how wonderfully safe and loving our family is and was.
One thing that shocks me about England is the prevelance of 'partners' or semi-legitimate relationships either with civil recognition or without but simply aren't as permanent as marriages. There are tons of single moms around and Elder Shrubb has told me that lots of people don't even know their partner's religious beliefs.
For everyone:
So... After all my other side emails I was gonna email everyone, and Elder Shrubb just finished and is now waiting for me, so uhhhhh I guess this'll be a brief email to everyone. The nice thing is that there's not lots to talk about that springs to mind, but all is well I'd say here in England. Just so you know Brother Wright sent me 2 copies of the part 2 of the Men's chorus soundtrack so I don't know if that means someone else is missing one or what, maybe let him know, it's not a big deal on my side because I think I could get it maybe from one of the missionaries coming in from Men's Chorus but we'll see. Thank you for all the music though, it's wonderful, and thank you for all the letters I've received, sorry but I don't have time to write back to all of them and really not too much to say. Well, not much else, today is a zone P-day so we'll see how it goes.
Lots of love and not much time,
Elder Ryan Baxter
I remember you talking about how Christa would write about how much she loves you and didn't appreciate you and stuff and how her mission helped her see that. I was wondering when that would happen for me, and I think I had the first example of that this week.
We had a dinner appointment with a couple, their daughter and their granddaughter and they're all active but they've had struggles. After the daughter and granddaughter left the table we talked about life and stuff and how the daughter had left the church and struggled but had come back, and then the mother talked about all 3 of her children had left the church for awhile but had come back and how that seemed normal during the teenage years. My companion also agreed sorta just talking about how he didn't go to church for a long time for show jumping and other stuff and how as a kid his aunt would get them to drink coffee and wine and stuff when they visited her.
I don't know if all that made sense, but it really made me realize, there was never a time where I really doubted the church. I might have said, the big bang theory makes sense, evolution makes sense, and I don't know how they fit in the creation, but there's gotta be a way. And even stuff like that, it never really seemed plausible to me that the church wouldn't or couldn't be true, and I still feel a little bad about the one time I stayed home from church cause I was sick and I played video games instead. So really, I'm just really grateful whatever you did to keep our entire family in the church from what I could tell all the time and how much you loved us and were patient with us. Elder Shrubb will talk about some of the things his mom would do like read about Laman and Lemuel when they were untidy, and how clothes left in 1 spot in their rooms for a week would get donated to like salvation army, and I just go, 'wow, glad my mom was patient with me and just loved me and encouraged me to be clean and stuff.' I don't know, I'm just glad that I knew you loved me so much and that you still love me and I think as I'll see more families that have some things missing, I'll see even more how wonderfully safe and loving our family is and was.
One thing that shocks me about England is the prevelance of 'partners' or semi-legitimate relationships either with civil recognition or without but simply aren't as permanent as marriages. There are tons of single moms around and Elder Shrubb has told me that lots of people don't even know their partner's religious beliefs.
For everyone:
So... After all my other side emails I was gonna email everyone, and Elder Shrubb just finished and is now waiting for me, so uhhhhh I guess this'll be a brief email to everyone. The nice thing is that there's not lots to talk about that springs to mind, but all is well I'd say here in England. Just so you know Brother Wright sent me 2 copies of the part 2 of the Men's chorus soundtrack so I don't know if that means someone else is missing one or what, maybe let him know, it's not a big deal on my side because I think I could get it maybe from one of the missionaries coming in from Men's Chorus but we'll see. Thank you for all the music though, it's wonderful, and thank you for all the letters I've received, sorry but I don't have time to write back to all of them and really not too much to say. Well, not much else, today is a zone P-day so we'll see how it goes.
Lots of love and not much time,
Elder Ryan Baxter
July 6, 2010
Dear Family (because I only recently got Alisa's letter that said maybe I should start my letters more warmly, and so I felt a little guilty)
Everything here is more or less good and wonderful. I did try to keep names off in case people didn't want their names thrown around but I agree that names help you know what's going on and first names aren't exactly well, specific. The boy is named Tom and to be honest I haven't heard from him like he promised so he might either be low-commitment or he's put it off but I'll make sure we at least phone him and see where he is. If nothing else we've warmed him to the gospel later in his life, but I think he and I would both prefer sooner than 'later on.'
The husband I guess I mentioned (I don't remember saying anything about them) is named Frank and we actually taught him this past week. We decided to just talk about doctrines on a specific subject because he is rather well-versed in Mormon doctrine but at the same time I'd say he's looked at positive and negative sources which makes it a little trickier. We talked to him about Pre-earth life and why we think that's important and also about the spirit world and why we think there are two judgments and how we resolve heaven and hell and then 3 degrees of glory. I didn't notice but Elder Shrubb said there were some times in the lesson where Frank just kinda paused, cause I suppose we made sense. His wife Kelly(I think) didn't join in or listen as far as I know but we have another appointment later this week and hopefully she'll listen in because I think this would interest her.
We also taught a lady named Nikki that other missionaries including E. Shrubb taught and we committed her to church which Elder Shrubb said she's never agreed to before, so hopefully that happens! I really hope we have other people committed to church Sunday because last Sunday we had 0 investigators, including our 1 investigator who was progressing(Lynne). Lynne was sick these past two weeks and we've been struggling to teach her still so at least for a little she's not really progressing but I think she is doing better so hopefully we can get her on the track towards baptism soon.
I'm excited about those CDs because music as you all know is like my lifeblood and that shouldn't have to change during my mission, speaking of which I bought a guitar at a ward auction. I can really only play it on P-days but I plan on learning a bit of guitar today and the rest of the time I'm still here in Kidderminster. I guess it's my present to all future missionaries here. The good news is that Elder Shrubb has been stuck in Kiddy so long he's likely to get transferred and not me which means more geetar time. Oh and we had a message from the post office or someone that there's a package for us so if that is the CD package, we'll get it today :D If not oh well I'll have something to look forward to.
We had an awesome Zone Conference with Elder Kapshka (Christa might know that name) cause he's the Area President of Europe and he taught us and me a lot about how real and valuable personal revelation is. I'm really glad I had that experience at the beginning of my mission because it's helped me redefine my outlook about it all, though I probably would have got more out of it had I had it later, and it may have also been wonderful if this was my last transfer. It was a really great Zone conference though and it's great to see lots of Elders again, especially from my MTC group.
Some thoughts I've had over the last week or so...
I found out lots of missionaries with Echoes footwear would get huge cracks in the soles rendering them useless in wet ol' England so I think it is good I got the Rockports, especially because they aren't uncomfortable really. I do appreciate the loving sentiment in trying to get me to buy them though, don't get me wrong on that account.
Do you or dad or anyone else know what the rules on customs are? I'm just wondering If I buy a backpack or new suits or anything that I actually want to bring back, along with souveniers how I should go about doing that. Just wondering if I'll have to declare customs on like anything that I'll actually need and use that I'll bring back or what. Not very concerned right now about that but If I do need to record those things or whatever it may be good to know.
On that subject I just remembered, did we have to pay for an extra suitcase at the airport? I don't think we did but if we did I would enjoy being compensated for that through my mission fund which I can either return to you or use here. But I don't think we had to.
On to more selfish topics, if you plan any big vacations during my mission, let me know what they are because I realized I'll probably really want a beach vacation of some sort when all's said and done here. Maybe Lagoona beach would satisfy me, but for 2 years without getting wet I think I would like a beach vacation at the end or near then. If you do do something like that don't rub it in.
I got lots of letters at zone conference I hadn't received due to them being addressed to the mission home/field whatever you wanna call it, so thanks for all of those, including the photo album, especially the picture where I look stoned. Thanks Alisa. I also got a letter from Ian which was really cool, and a letter from a girl(that's not my sister)! The only trouble with that last part, is I don't know who the girl is. So I get to write a letter where I have to say that. She didn't put it on the return address, and her signature is a mystery. I'd almost wonder if it was a girl except the handwriting is definitely a girls. What bothers me most is the signature looks familiar, but I didn't know a lot of girls at BYU so who really knows?
If you do put my Kidderminster address be sure to warn people that Transfers are short-notice so around the 5 or 6 week mark not to just keep sending letters here in case I do move. Just warn people about that now and when it gets close I'll say in my email to put that notice up.
But really I'm loving it all for the most part and things sound mostly good at home. Thanks for all the letters and packages and prayers and I can't wait to be back with you all! In like 2 years. Speaking of which, I'm pretty sure I went into the MTC on May 28th, and it's July 6th, so how do you figure it's almost been 2 months? Oh well hopefully that day will come before I realize it. Time is moving along now evenly I think, maybe it'll get faster I don't know. It certainly doesn't feel like I've been serving for too long, though I remember times when it felt like forever.
I think that wraps up this letter, I have 13 more minutes so I don't know how I'll spend them exactly, there might be another email.
Love,
Ryan
Everything here is more or less good and wonderful. I did try to keep names off in case people didn't want their names thrown around but I agree that names help you know what's going on and first names aren't exactly well, specific. The boy is named Tom and to be honest I haven't heard from him like he promised so he might either be low-commitment or he's put it off but I'll make sure we at least phone him and see where he is. If nothing else we've warmed him to the gospel later in his life, but I think he and I would both prefer sooner than 'later on.'
The husband I guess I mentioned (I don't remember saying anything about them) is named Frank and we actually taught him this past week. We decided to just talk about doctrines on a specific subject because he is rather well-versed in Mormon doctrine but at the same time I'd say he's looked at positive and negative sources which makes it a little trickier. We talked to him about Pre-earth life and why we think that's important and also about the spirit world and why we think there are two judgments and how we resolve heaven and hell and then 3 degrees of glory. I didn't notice but Elder Shrubb said there were some times in the lesson where Frank just kinda paused, cause I suppose we made sense. His wife Kelly(I think) didn't join in or listen as far as I know but we have another appointment later this week and hopefully she'll listen in because I think this would interest her.
We also taught a lady named Nikki that other missionaries including E. Shrubb taught and we committed her to church which Elder Shrubb said she's never agreed to before, so hopefully that happens! I really hope we have other people committed to church Sunday because last Sunday we had 0 investigators, including our 1 investigator who was progressing(Lynne). Lynne was sick these past two weeks and we've been struggling to teach her still so at least for a little she's not really progressing but I think she is doing better so hopefully we can get her on the track towards baptism soon.
I'm excited about those CDs because music as you all know is like my lifeblood and that shouldn't have to change during my mission, speaking of which I bought a guitar at a ward auction. I can really only play it on P-days but I plan on learning a bit of guitar today and the rest of the time I'm still here in Kidderminster. I guess it's my present to all future missionaries here. The good news is that Elder Shrubb has been stuck in Kiddy so long he's likely to get transferred and not me which means more geetar time. Oh and we had a message from the post office or someone that there's a package for us so if that is the CD package, we'll get it today :D If not oh well I'll have something to look forward to.
We had an awesome Zone Conference with Elder Kapshka (Christa might know that name) cause he's the Area President of Europe and he taught us and me a lot about how real and valuable personal revelation is. I'm really glad I had that experience at the beginning of my mission because it's helped me redefine my outlook about it all, though I probably would have got more out of it had I had it later, and it may have also been wonderful if this was my last transfer. It was a really great Zone conference though and it's great to see lots of Elders again, especially from my MTC group.
Some thoughts I've had over the last week or so...
I found out lots of missionaries with Echoes footwear would get huge cracks in the soles rendering them useless in wet ol' England so I think it is good I got the Rockports, especially because they aren't uncomfortable really. I do appreciate the loving sentiment in trying to get me to buy them though, don't get me wrong on that account.
Do you or dad or anyone else know what the rules on customs are? I'm just wondering If I buy a backpack or new suits or anything that I actually want to bring back, along with souveniers how I should go about doing that. Just wondering if I'll have to declare customs on like anything that I'll actually need and use that I'll bring back or what. Not very concerned right now about that but If I do need to record those things or whatever it may be good to know.
On that subject I just remembered, did we have to pay for an extra suitcase at the airport? I don't think we did but if we did I would enjoy being compensated for that through my mission fund which I can either return to you or use here. But I don't think we had to.
On to more selfish topics, if you plan any big vacations during my mission, let me know what they are because I realized I'll probably really want a beach vacation of some sort when all's said and done here. Maybe Lagoona beach would satisfy me, but for 2 years without getting wet I think I would like a beach vacation at the end or near then. If you do do something like that don't rub it in.
I got lots of letters at zone conference I hadn't received due to them being addressed to the mission home/field whatever you wanna call it, so thanks for all of those, including the photo album, especially the picture where I look stoned. Thanks Alisa. I also got a letter from Ian which was really cool, and a letter from a girl(that's not my sister)! The only trouble with that last part, is I don't know who the girl is. So I get to write a letter where I have to say that. She didn't put it on the return address, and her signature is a mystery. I'd almost wonder if it was a girl except the handwriting is definitely a girls. What bothers me most is the signature looks familiar, but I didn't know a lot of girls at BYU so who really knows?
If you do put my Kidderminster address be sure to warn people that Transfers are short-notice so around the 5 or 6 week mark not to just keep sending letters here in case I do move. Just warn people about that now and when it gets close I'll say in my email to put that notice up.
But really I'm loving it all for the most part and things sound mostly good at home. Thanks for all the letters and packages and prayers and I can't wait to be back with you all! In like 2 years. Speaking of which, I'm pretty sure I went into the MTC on May 28th, and it's July 6th, so how do you figure it's almost been 2 months? Oh well hopefully that day will come before I realize it. Time is moving along now evenly I think, maybe it'll get faster I don't know. It certainly doesn't feel like I've been serving for too long, though I remember times when it felt like forever.
I think that wraps up this letter, I have 13 more minutes so I don't know how I'll spend them exactly, there might be another email.
Love,
Ryan
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