Chapter 46: Merry Christmas! 聖誕快樂！

Hiya everyone!

Well this week has been crazy busy and I feel like we haven't had much time to actually work! We've been running around to tea appointments, Christmas parties, and the like. Oh, and we also had a baptism this weekend. :)

Yup, Izzie got baptised this past Saturday and was confirmed yesterday in church! It was a great service and a few of her friends came! They said they really liked it. I asked Izzie how she felt afterwards. She said she had the same feeling when she first attended another baptism we had earlier this year: warm and peaceful. So that was absolutely awesome. 

Izzie's baptism yay!!!

We also had our Christmas party with all the missionaries in the north this past week! It was pretty fun. We got to wear jeans and travel to the chapel... in jeans. It was really weird actually. I felt much more secure when I changed back into my skirt at the end of the day. But we played fun games and watched this weird but funny British Christmas film, so I think it was a success.

The sisters in our district

Me and Sister Lu wearing trousers on the metro. :)

Christmas party! All the sisters of the north! 

Me and sister Wiborny!

My favourite part of the week was Saturday night, when we went to a stake fireside about the Christmas Truce that happened during World War I, exactly 100 years ago. It was very spiritual, and towards the end, some of the missionaries sang Silent Night in German and then we joined in and sang English for the last few verses. It was really touching to me and testified of how the Saviour was born to redeem all mankind, not just one nation of people. Being on a mission in England but speaking Chinese a lot has taught me that there are people all over the world with different cultures, backgrounds, and languages, but that Christ died and was resurrected for all of us, regardless of our differences. The spirit of Christ is the spirit of charity and love towards everyone, no matter where we go or who we are.

Christmas cookies and my and sister Chee's penguins, Charles and Julius!

I hope that you all have a wonderful, amazing Christmas! Remember the true meaning but also be sure to have fun as well. I am so grateful to be a missionary, especially at this time of year. Thank you all for the e-mails, support, and everything, you're all so good to me. Merry Christmas!!

Love,

Sister Larson

Chapter 45: The spirit of Christmas is the spirit of Christ

Hello all!

This week has gone by super fast. Probably because we've had so many things we've had to do this week to prepare for Christmas and the break. But it's also been a fun week! We've seen many small miracles.

Miracle #1: Izzie passed her baptismal interview! Woohoo! She gets baptised this Saturday and she and I are both very, very excited. She had a lot of questions about how we get answers to prayers and has been able to recognise the hand of God in her life much better. So that was just awesome and we're looking forward to this Saturday!!

Miracle #2: We have an investigator named Crystal who is super sweet and probably the nicest, most genuine person I've ever met. She's just so cute! Unfortunately, her family opposes her joining the church so she won't be baptised just yet. But this week in our lesson with her, she shared a story about how she was praying and she said she felt this feeling that she'd never really felt before - like someone was there with her, giving her a hug. It was a simple but powerful testimony of the love God has for us. :)

We had a relief society caroling activity! Here we are with our investigator
Crystal and member Cathy, with all the sisters!

Miracle #3: We taught our new investigator Valentine with our recent convert, Zhang Yi. We were teaching about the Restoration and I told the story of the First Vision. When we were done, it was silent for a moment or two, and then Zhang Yi said, "Wow. That story always is so awesome," really quietly. It really helped keep the Spirit in our lesson, and all of us could feel the Spirit testifying to us of the truth of Joseph Smith and his experience. It was amazing!

Other than that, this week has been spent busily preparing for Christmas parties, Christmas church services, and other Christmas events. We've been so busy but at the same time we have been so blessed. The members are so good to us here, inviting us to their homes and giving us little Christmas gifts. Sometimes it feels like I'm being served way more than I'm giving service. 

It snowed for like five minutes one day!  So exciting.

I hope you all are having a good Christmas season so far and that you get to be with your loved ones this Christmas! Again, remember who it is that we are celebrating this season - our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; His life, death, and triumphant resurrection. I love Him and I know He loves all of you. Have a fantastic week! Love you all!

Love,

Sister Larson  

Sister Davis, who came on exchange with us for the day.

Chapter 44: Christmas, Christmas time is here!

Hiya everyone!

Wow this week has been so crazy busy. We were out teaching a lot and barely had any finding time. But when we did, it was still pretty fun.

Let's see, the highlights of this week... Yesterday for p-day we went to this place called the Life Science Centre, which is like a science museum. It's kind of for children a little bit, but it was still fun! Grown ups can still go to science museums! Ahem. We saw this cool exhibit called Body World which is where you see body parts and human bodies that have been plasticized, or preserved in this cool way. I'll admit, it was kind of gross but my pre-nursing companion loved it and it was a little bit cool.

Backing up to Sunday: we had Elder Donaldson from the Area Presidency come to our church meeting, probably to check out our Chinese members. We invited like crazy and had a huge turnout for the ward of both English and Chinese members. It was also fast and testimony meeting, and three of our Chinese members and recent converts bore their testimony. One of my favourite parts was from Paul, who got baptised four ish months ago who talked about how when the missionaries told him about enduring to the end, he replied "Psh, that sounds pretty easy!" He has such a strong faith in Jesus Christ that he doesn't fear anything that might happen to him. He knows where his foundation is laid, and it is truly in the right place. 

Also a quick update on Izzie, our investigator scheduled for baptism on the 20th: she has been busy with school work but she is reading and praying every day! We are so proud of her efforts even at this busy time. She's progressing so quickly!

Well I hope that you have all had a chance to serve someone this week! Remember, Christmas is a time for asking what we can give and not what we can receive. I miss having a Christmas tree and making goodies and whatnot. But the most joy I've felt so far this season has come from seeing others smile. :)

I love you all! Have an awesome wonderful week!

Love,

Sister Larson

A big beautiful tree by the city center

No caption provided by Meagan.  Perhaps it reminded her
of trick-or-treating in Shanghai.

 

Another great selfie

Us eating hot pot!

Close up of the hot pot

Chapter 43: He is the Gift

Dear family and friends,

Hiya! I hope that all of your Thanksgiving celebrations were fantastic! For our actual Thanksgiving, we ate turkey soup from leftovers from our big feast last p-day. :)

This week has gone by so fast it seems! Last Wednesday, after the Internet started working again, I went to South Shields for a little field trip! Or exchange. It was great fun. South Shields is beautiful and we had fun meeting with the sisters' investigator there. It was so cute because her little 7 year old son, who attends a Christian school, was telling us all about Jesus and how we should pray and whatnot. He even offered to say the closing prayer for us!

Then this weekend, miracle of miracles, Zhang Yi was baptised!!! It was so great. He was excited and the baptismal service went really well. It was hard to think that this was our investigator who at first said that he would never be baptised, ever. It's showed me a lot how the Spirit can work in people and bring about a mighty change in their hearts. 

Zhang Yi's baptism

As Christmas begins, I'm sure you all have heard from your own missionaries and ward leaders about the He is the Gift initiative. I would just second everything they say and encourage you to share with your friends all about Jesus Christ and the true meaning of Christmas. Being on a mission has helped me re-evaluate what the most important things in my life are, and Jesus Christ is at the centre of it all. The holiday decorations and music are fun and exciting, but the most exciting thing of all is that 2,014 years ago Jesus Christ was born on the earth and came so that we could live again and return to the presence of God the Father. 

Snowflakes that i made to decorate our flat

I love you all and hope you have a wonderful first week of December! Go sing some carols and spread some Christmas cheer by singing loud for all to hear!! :)

Love,

Sister Larson

Entrance to the black gate

The black gate

Trapped inside the black gate

St. Nicholas cathedral which dates back to a long long time ago

Chapter 42: Happy (belated) Thanksgiving!

Note:  Due to problems with the public library internet access last week, we did not hear from Meagan until Wednesday instead of Monday.  And we were in Utah playing with family for Thanksgiving.  So the posting is late this week...

Hello dear friends and family,

This past week has been pretty great! A lot of things happened that were pretty awesome... Most of them were just meetings. (YAY). The best one was a sisters' meeting we had with all of the sister missionaries serving in the northern area of our mission. We went to this place called South Shields which is right on the coast of Northern England, so it was gorgeous even though it was cold. (See attached photo.) One thing we did that was fun is that we all picked up a little rock that we found in the sand. Then our sister training leader told us that it represents us being a little "bolder," or "boulder".... It took me forever to get that pun, but once I did I really loved it! :) All it takes for us to be a bit bolder is to say hi to someone and ask them how they're doing. A lot of people in our mission ask what the best finding approach is when street or bus contacting, and usually the first question I ask most people is "Hi! How are you?" Some of them keep walking, but a lot of them are a bit surprised and then start talking to me. All it takes is a bit of kindness and people open up quickly.

The other fun thing of the week was working with Zhang Yi and Izzie! Zhang Yi is ready to be baptised this Saturday and passed his interview and everything! He also had a great time attending the nation-wide Chinese YSA Convention in London this weekend. Izzie continues to do well, but we pushed her baptismal date back to the 20th of December, which is when her two essays will be done and turned in, that way she can focus completely on her baptism and preparing for it. Seeing their progression has been a privilege and a true miracle. 

Also, happy Thanksgiving everyone!! Our Thanksgiving came early, since our whole zone gathered together on p-day to partake of a delicious feast prepared by our senior couple serving in our area. It was super delicious, and we also got to watch my FAVOURITE Christmas film, Elf! But the best part was when we went around the table and all said something we're thankful for. I've learned a lot on my mission, and one of those things is that I have so many things to be thankful for. And even when I think I don't, I try to be grateful in my circumstances, like Pres. Uchtdorf has told us. In England, I've experienced more rain storms than I ever have in my whole life. But I've also seen more rainbows in these ten months than I have in my whole life as well. I've learned to be grateful for both the rain and the rainbow. :)

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving week! Sorry the e-mail is so late this week, the internet was down throughout all the libraries in the city. I love you all!!

Love,

Sister Larson

No captions this week, just "Pics from South Shields."  We suspect she was in a hurry at the library computer.

Chapter 41: Why aye man, it's cold outside!

Hello everyone!

In the subject line, I thought saying "baby, it's cold outside" was a bit awkward, so I put a Geordie twist on it. (Geordie is the name of the accent here in Newcastle.) "Why aye man" basically means "Yeah" or something of the affirmative nature. :)

And it has been really super cold and rainy lately. But hey, it's still been a good week! This week we got to take a field trip to Billingham for a Zone Conference. It was really great and we learned lots of new things. The most important thing we learned was about how despite our trials or difficulties, we need to keep our chin up and smile. We have many things to be thankful for, and we should always keep those in mind. 

Pretty sunrise on the train to Billingham

This week we also had a few wonderful miracles! We met with Jerry, a recent convert, and he told us an awesome story about how one day when he lost his keys, he looked for them everywhere but couldn't find them. So after doing all he could, he remembered that he could pray for help. So he prayed, and then had a thought come to him that he should open the front door. He thought that was a bit strange, but he did it anyway. When he opened the door, an older woman stood there, holding his keys! He was so excited he told everyone about it, and he told us that his roommates were saying that they should learn how to pray too, so that they can always have someone help them.

Sister Chee, Sister Lu, and me

We also scheduled Izzie and Zhang Yi, some of our long-term investigators, for baptism on the 29th of November! They were both very willing to pray about that date and prepare for it, so we are happy for them. I'm grateful for the influence of the Holy Ghost and how it has helped these friends of mine feel the love that God has for them.

All the Chinese speakers in the north - front row is Sister Xie, Sister Lu, Sister Chee, me.
Back row is Elder Sorenson (he's in Newcastle) and then Elder Lee and Elder Adams,
 who is also here (he's my district leader.)

Well I hope that you all have an absolutely wonderful week! Enjoy the snow if you live in Idaho, or the sun if you live somewhere warm - I'll just enjoy the lovely gray weather here in England. :) Love you all!!

Sister Lu, Sister Chee, Sister Monroy, me

Bonus Feature: Zone Conference Report

Meagan had a zone conference this week and was given instructions by her mission president to write a midweek email home to her family.  So it was quite a surprise when we received this from her:

Good morning my beautiful family,

 

I'm sure you're all wondering why I'm e-mailing you on a Wednesday morning. "Sister Larson," you say, "That's dodgy. Why are you being so disobedient?" Well, I'm actually not. We were asked by our mission president yesterday at Zone Conference to write our lovely families an e-mail and tell them what we learned from the meeting. I don't really know the reason why, but hey - I'll jump at any chance to communicate with my lovely jiaren. :)

 

So yesterday at Zone Conference we learned a LOT of things. We learned more about how we can progress our investigators better, how we can do better teaching models (those are like when you practise teaching an investigator or member with your companion - like acting something out. It's a bit weird sometimes, honestly, but they're fun.), and how we can respond to anger and always be peacemakers.

 

But one of my favourite things that I learned was a song that came from the era of World War I. Sister Pilkington introduced it to us, and later an Elder sang it for us. Then we stood up and sang it together several times. The words go like this (maybe mom or dad will know it):

 

Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag

And smile, smile, smile

Just think of all the happy times we'll have

Smile boys, that's the style!

What's the use of worrying?

It never was worthwhile

So pack up your troubles in your old kit bag

And smile, smile, smile!

 

I was really impressed with this song. The words are simple, and the advice the song gives us doesn't seem that earth-shattering or difficult. It just says to smile and not worry. But if you think about when this song came out- during a time of world war, fear, and death - it seems really hard indeed to "smile, smile, smile." Sometimes missionary work can be a bit hard. There are days where I feel like nothing is going right and then on top of everything, it starts to rain and our tea appointment cancels on us. But at least I don't have to worry about if I will live through the night. These soldiers throughout every conflict in the history of the world made a huge sacrifice to protect their families and their countries. So I think yesterday at Zone Conference, I learned a lot about how no matter how hard I may think my trials are, I have so many more blessings that have been given to me. I have quite a lot to smile about, the most important being you all: my lovely family. :)

 

So I hope that you all can remember to "smile, smile, smile" and quit worrying - it's never worthwhile anyway and won't change anything. "No one likes a frowny face, change it for a smile - make the world a better place by smiling all the while." We all have so many things to smile about. We live in free countries, we have a knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and we have been sealed together as a forver family upon the condition of our faithfulness and effort.

 

Well. Currently in England it is gray and drizzly. I'm used to it now, I think my poor Californian companion is trying to get over the fact that she won't see the sun as much anymore, bless her. I hope we get some snow soon!

 

Love,

Meagan

Chapter 40: New "baby" arrives and Chee is awesome!

Dajia hao!

So this week something really awesome happened.... my trainee finally arrived! After two weeks of waiting and preparing, Sister Chee came to Newcastle, jet lagged but ready to work! She is from California, near San Francisco. She likes to play sports. She's hilarious. And she is of Asian descent, although she recently started learning Chinese. So all of our Chinese members walk up to her and start chattering in Mandarin and she's like "... Uh, I'm American." And they say, "Are you sure?" And she says "Yeah, pretty sure." But her Chinese is pretty great for only learning it for 9 weeks!

Me and my baby, Sister Chee!

Another pic of me and my cute daughter

So the highlight was probably getting to be with my new companion and go out teaching and finding with her. I kind of threw her in the deep end: we had a lesson with our investigator an hour after she got to our flat. But she did wonderful and she is always willing to do what I ask her to do. So she will be just fine. :) 

Well this week I learned again that it is only through everyday prayer and scripture study that we can grow closer to Jesus Christ. I wish that I had been more diligent about that before my mission, but I'm grateful for the wake-up call now. I love being able to feel the Spirit everyday. I've found that I bounce back from trials a lot faster and that my thoughts are on a higher plane, because I'm trying to focus on the Saviour and on others. 

Me and Sister Lu with Rui Feng

Christmas is coming and the English people are preparing for it! They don't do Thanksgiving, they skip that, so I've been listening to Christmas music in the flat and it's always playing in the shops! I love it. More time to celebrate Christmas? I'm totally down for that. 

Well thank you all again for your support and prayers! I love you all and hope that you had a wonderful week. Keep doing awesome things!

Love,

Sister Larson

Chapter 39: A great day to hit halfway

Happy November, everyone!

Is it really November? Is this Wednesday really my halfway point? Have I really been on my mission for nine months now? Is this real life?

The answer to all of the above is: yes. As much as I don't want to admit it sometimes, it's totally true. But it's been a great start to the month of November. On the first day, this past Saturday, RUI FENG GOT BAPTISED!! :) It was a beautiful sunny (windy, cold) day and her parents and brother came, a rare occurrence for the Chinese members here. But since they live here with her, they managed to come and support her. And it was certainly a memorable experience. She had to be baptised three times. Her hair floated, her foot popped, and then it was perfect. But although she had confided to us her fear of water, she told us later that as she was being lowered into the water the first time, she wasn't scared at all. And we told her, of course, that it was because Heavenly Father loved her and would help her with all of her fears and sorrows and disappointments. I know that's true, especially because He has been there for me. 

Rui Feng's baptism! There's her parents, her brother, her,
Damon (the guy who baptised her) and then me and my companions!!

Other than that, this week has been interesting because I've been working in a trio while I anxiously await the arrival of my new companion - two more days!! But it's been fun and definitely a learning experience as we've worked as three people over two areas. We've been busy, we've had some interesting experiences - one of them being teaching an Iranian family who spoke very little English after meeting them on the street. They were very kind, maybe a bit TOO kind - the father kept touching my hair and smiling at me. But we've had fun together as a trio and we've learned to balance the work and teaching. Also, for Halloween, we painted each other's faces. (Pictures to come.) So it was a great week.

Here are the pictures of us on Halloween!
Sister Monroy is the creepy skeleton thing, Sister Lu is the tiger,
and I am a zombie. We did the best we could with
cheap grocery-store face paint. They turned out pretty well I think. :)

I hope you all had an awesome Halloween and a wonderful week! Remember, remember the 5th of November!! Happy Guy Fawkes Night! And if you don't know what that is - look it up! It's awesome! Love you all!

Love,

Sister Larson

Chapter 38: So much excitement I can't even!

Dear family and friends,

So as you can tell from my subject line, this week was exciting and all over the place. It was transfer calls this week, so we had to say goodbye to the two dying missionaries in my district, one who was my flatmate. So that was sad.

But then on transfer night, I got a call to say that I am training a new missionary!!! I was really excited and a bit overwhelmed, but it will be a great experience. Unfortunately, she doesn't get here until November 5th, because she is still in the Provo MTC learning Chinese. So until then I'm in a trio with Sister Lu, who got moved to the Newcastle English area with Sister Monroy! Crazy. But we've had lots of fun as a trio so far.

The other highlight of the week was working with Rui Feng. Now, when I first met her she was terribly shy and would barely talk to me or my companion. She didn't read the Book of Mormon or pray hardly, and she wouldn't answer the questions we asked her. Flash forward a few weeks. She's reading the Book of Mormon and enjoying it, and praying too, but she won't commit to a baptismal date and/or pushes her date back every week. Flash forward to this last Wednesday. We had a super long super awesome lesson with her where we were trying to figure out why she didn't want to be baptised. Basically, it came down to the fact that she's afraid of water and she doesn't think she can endure to the end. Well. The water thing was easy to deal with. The endure to the end - she went home and talked to her dad about it and do you know what he said? "Just do it. Go get baptised, it's a good thing to do." And he's not even a member!! So she called us the next day and said she was so ready to be baptised and can she get baptised tomorrow and she's just so excited. And we said okay you can be baptised. But you need to wait a few days so we can interview you and schedule your baptism. 

So, she will get baptised this Saturday!! And we couldn't be more excited. :)

Me and my companions and Rui Feng!
The wind made my hair get all over my face so i'm not that cute in this picture but oh well.

This week has been amazing and full of wonderful miracles and excitement. I hope you all have a happy Halloween this week, don't eat too much candy (the chocolate in America can't even compare with British chocolate anyway) and remember to pray and read your scriptures! Love you all!

Love,

Sister Larson

The Angel of the North - a cool statue that is randomly in the middle of nowhere.

 Here's us by the ELM street sign.
Because ELM stands for England Leeds Mission!!!! ha ha.

Great food that Angela (member) made for us last week.

 

This is my district! The girl on the end and the shortest elder went home.
Sister Rossi, me, Sister Lu, Sister Monroy, Elder Adams, Elder Thompson, Elder Summers, Elder Field

Chapter 37: Tales of Answered Prayers

Hiya!

This week has been pretty fantastic. First off: I got to go on a field trip! To South Shields, another area in my zone. I went on an exchange and got to be companions with Sister Ahola for the day. She's still in training, so it was fun to be with a missionary who's actually younger than me, in real life and mission life. So that was awesome.

Me and sister Ahola! 

I still make ridiculous faces. #somethingsneverchange

And then we had awesome lessons with Zhang Yi and Rui Feng. I didn't have any Avatar analogies this time, but they are both making such great progress! Zhang Yi talked to us about how he thinks he's finding answers to prayers, and he said, "I think maybe we can get answers to our prayers from other people. Does that ever happen?" And we told him yes, yes it does. Then Rui Feng said to us excitedly, "I actually like reading the Book of Mormon now! The more I read it, the more I love it!" And we were able to tell her, "We love it too!" So this week our lessons have been amazingly spiritual. I could tell that in them, it wasn't just our investigators who were growing spiritually, it was my companion and me as well. 

Big ship from Russia 

Pretty South Shields right by the River Tyne 

To top it off, Sunday was great. I'd been praying all week with a problem I was having, and then on Sunday morning during personal study I happened to be reading Alma 5, a chapter that answered my question. And all of the talks and lessons in church on Sunday kept answering my question and gave me further ideas for how I need to fix my problem! One of the speakers in sacrament meeting told about her conversion story and how her prayers were answered. She said that it was amazing to her how, despite the fact that millions of prayers are offered around the world all the time, Heavenly Father knew her and listened to her prayer and gave her an answer she could recognise. I know that is true.

So this week I hope you all are listening to the still, small voice, because Heavenly Father is just waiting to answer our prayers and help us. I know He listens to us and loves us. I love you all! Have an awesome week. 

Love,

Sister Larson

Baptism on Saturday!
Me, Angela (member), Sister Lu, Sophie (investigator/recent
convert of other sisters,) Sister Monroy, Sister Rossi

We were playing around on Sister Monroy's camera