Chapter 19: She's a Big Girl Now!

Hiya mates!

So you might be a bit confused about the subject line. Well, it is because I am no longer a baby, I'm a big girl! I'm not being trained anymore! YAAAAY! But, I get to be companions with Sister Huang for another transfer, which is super awesome. So yes, transfer calls were this week, nothing major happened, I still live with all the same people... moving on.

Updates with Ting Ting: She is now tentatively scheduled for the 27th of June! She seriously is doing so great, she shares experiences with us all the time about how she has felt the Spirit. She also is very serious about her dedication to things. She has told us that she doesn't get why she can't drink alcohol or why she has to obey the Word of Wisdom, but that she knows it will bless her life. Wow, she is so awesome!

Other than that, last week my flatmates and me and my companion went to the Deep, this supposedly awesome aquarium... it was £11.50 and I would have paid maybe 4. Haha but we had lots of fun together and we had very much fun being lost in the rain trying to find the flipping place. I took lots of pictures as well, so I'd say it was a success.

Us in the dismal England weather, me and my companion, she is so weird :)

Don't we look so healthy and normal skinned?
This was us in the underwater tunnel that was literally like a metre long or something.

Dcuks are really cute. All of the ducks said dcuk. i thought it was funny. This isn't even China or anything.

I found Nemo, did you?

GeneralPpenguin standing erect and proud of his country,
 with his second in command and the lazy guy who
does nothing but lay down and order people around.

I have eaten two things I could not identify on sight this week: one was cow stomach (which wasn't too bad actually, but I wouldn't eat the intestines) and the other was chili. Or chilli, if you want to say it like a Brit. Yeah I was at a dinner with all the missionaries in the ward and the bishop and his wife, and there was an awkward silence and I wanted to say something, so I asked "Wow, this is good, what is it?" and Sister Sanderson was like, "It's chili." And I said "oh" and everyone laughed but hey, it tasted good so no harm done.

Ew intestine.

For some Rather English Things:

Crumpets are real. That's not a stereotype. They're pretty good. They're like thick pancake things but they taste like a crepe.

The English umbrella manufacturers have got it figured out. The umbrellas here stink but it rains all the time, so you always have to buy a new one. I'm on my third.

Well that's about it for this week. Remember that only he who hath clean hands and a pure heart shall be able to live with the Lord again. We have to do good things, AND we have to think good things as well. You're all so great! Have an awesome week! Love you!

Love,
Sister Larson

Chapter 18: Missionary Story Trek and Rather English Things

Note from editor:  Many weeks the internet cafe in Hull is run by a nice guy who lets the missionaries pay for an hour and then actually use the computer for additional time without having to pay more.  This was not one of those weeks, and everyone's messages were a bit shorter than usual as a result...

Da jia hao!

Well this week has been... rather uneventful to be perfectly honest. We're still working with Ting Ting, who is doing wonderful but has decided to push her baptism back. We're working with her on getting a desire to be baptized. She isn't taking the decision lightly and we're really grateful for that. And she is keeping all of the commandments and loves coming to church and activities. She's so awesome!

Lately in our finding, we've had a district challenge of gathering family stories from people, about them or their ancestors. More people than not just kind of stare at us and are like "I don't... have any." And I'm always like, trying to prompt them to think of something, to get them to talk.Most of the time that will work, and then people get happy when they talk about their family and they feel the Spirit and it's awesome. It's helped us talk to more people for sure!

One of the people we talked to for like almost an hour was this guy named Hessan. He's from Sudan and was telling us about how his dad was really rich when he was young, and how he had a car and a telephone and so therefore was way posh and way powerful. It was like something out of a storybook! People all have really interesting stories to tell, it's just getting them  to tell them that is the issue.

This is me and my spiffy English flag. Now, this is the flag of England, mind you, not the United Kingdom. Because people here do not refer to themselves as British or associated with the UK. They are English. They are from England. Not British. Oh no. don't mix it up or you will suffer some consequences... they're very big on national pride here. Also, don't mention Independence Day. They say that it's the day they got independent from us and finally kicked those stupid Americans out. Oh man it's so fun being from America here... :) Haha, it's just the English sense of humor.
They're mostly kidding but also a little bit serious.

For a little bit about some Rather English Things that occur only in England (as far as I'm aware): I might have mentioned that people LOVE to gamble. If not, then the little gambling/gaming shops are dotted all over every street. Also, they love this stuff called custard. It's like pudding, but runnier, and it doesn't have a strong flavor, it's just mildly sweet. And they put it on any and every dessert.

2 Nephi 32:3 - Feast upon the words of Christ, for behold, the words of Christ will tell you ALL things what ye should do. If you're having difficulty finding an answer, feeling peace, or dealing with any trial, read the scriptures, especially the Book of Mormon! So many times, my answers to prayers have come through scriptures.

I love you all! Have a wonderful week! Keep the faith!

Love,
Sister Larson

Chapter 17: New Contacts, British English, and Jaredite Herbs

Da jia hao!

So this week went by really quickly. And we had the most amazing miracle happen! On Tuesday I think, we were going to visit a less active from the ward. While we were on our way there, Sister Huang remembered that a bus contact she found a few weeks ago lived near the area we were in, and she suggested we call her to see if we could stop by. The less active wasn't home, so we stopped by our potential, who was a 16 year old girl. Both she and her mom listened to the first lesson right then and they both agreed to be baptized if they came to know the gospel was true! It was truly amazing. We have met with them twice since then. We can already tell that their progression will be slow, because they are confused a bit about which Christian church is the true church, but we are going to try to just serve them and let them know that we love them and that Heavenly Father loves them too. It was just so wonderful, they are both so great! 

(By the way, in the previous paragraph, both the words "mom" and "baptized" have little red lines underneath them telling me I spelled them wrong. It's supposed to be "mum" and "baptised". Oh British English.)

This is a picture drawn by Jevara, the little member whose
house we visit every week to do FHE with her and her brother and mom.
Her mom is Lithuanian and so sweet. And i'm teaching Jevara
 a bit of piano every week as well, which is fun.
It says to Sister Larson and Sister Hwong. Eh, she got close on the spelling. :)
It's a picture of a princess sister missionary, haha!

Anyways, other than that we are continuing to teach Ting Ting, who is still so fun and progressing so well! She is truly one of our miracles as well. She will be baptised next Saturday on the 14th! So excited! She is so great with keeping commitments and being willing to come to church. She sat through Stake Conference with us on Sunday, even though she'd stayed up most of the night before studying for exams.

As for the spiritual thought of the week, I wanted to share a quote from conference about courage:

"Everyday courage has few witnesses, but yours is no less noble because no drum beats for you and no crowds shout your name." It was in President Monson's talk, and I thought that it was really remarkable. It is easy to want to blend in with the crowd and be accepted by the world, and it is much harder to stay true to your belief. But I've learned that every little act of courage makes you a little more confident, and every action done in faith will strengthen your testimony and deepen your conversion. "Be not afraid, for the Lord thy God is with thee, whithersoever thou goest."

I love you all! Have a marvelous week! 

Love,
Sister Larson


Bonus story from a personal letter:

Quick funny story: so here in Britain they have another name for cilantro. They call it coriander. So I was telling Sis. Huang that, and she was like "They call it coriantumr?" And I was like, "No, coriander!" But it was funny. So now you can call cilantro Coriantumr, in my honor. Honour, sorry spell check. The other day I said car park of my own free will! I was horrified. I'm speaking British! :) 

Chapter 16: Tales of Rain and Rainbows

Hiya everyone!

This week has been not super eventful, but I sure have learned a lot. 

First off, we had zone conference last week! Yay! It was in Sheffield, which isn't too far of a drive, but we had to go pick up a ton of missionaries in Huddersfield, which is an hour out of the way, and then go all the way back. So it was about three hours there and three hours back, but it was really fun! We learned a lot about virtue and obedience, and my mission president is just hilarious. I also saw an Elder I met in the Provo MTC who had to be there for 8 weeks waiting for a visa even though he was an English speaker! He's here now though, so it's great.

Finally the picture you've wanted! I finally met sister pilkington, she's lovely.
And there's one with just me and one with me and Sister Huang! Aren't we cute? :)

Ting Ting is continuing to progress! We had to let go of Leah, unfortunately, but Ting Ting is absolutely wonderful. She shared with us her experience of going to church for the first time and said that when she opened the hymn book during the first hymn, she felt the sense of peace and of being at home, and that she's never felt anything like it before. It was so amazing! She is just so great!

As is common for the weather of England in the spring time, it has been raining a lot lately. At first, I was a little down because of it, but this morning I was reading President Uchtdorf's talk from the latest Conference. He mentioned about being grateful for the rain before being grateful for the rainbow. At first, I thought, "That's lame. Rain makes me wet and cold and it makes people not want to talk to me on the street because they're wet and cold." But then I remembered how beautiful and green England is, and how pretty the flowers are all of the time. It's because of the rain that these beautiful plants grow and bring joy to people. So remember everyone, that even trials teach us something and are necessary. We can be grateful that Heavenly Father loves us enough to teach us and make us into something stronger, something better than we could be on our own.

Miracles happen! Hard work eventually pays off! No words are wasted, as our mission president reminds us often. You are all so wonderful and I'm so appreciative of all the work you do to help local missionaries and tell friends about the church. There really is nothing that makes missionaries happier! Love you all! Have a wonderful week!

Love, 
Sister Larson

Chapter 15: Meagan Learns to Love Everyone, and Their Yorkshire Pudding

Dear everyone who gets this letter,

There is sunshine outside and there has been for the past few days and it has been SO NICE. Seriously, I hadn't seen the sun for days before that. The weather here is so beautiful right now! I love it! Unfortunately, it means that the nights are warmer so we have to open our windows, and because we live between two pubs, I woke up at 4 this morning to a drunk guy singing. Love it.

Statue of Queen Victoria in Victoria square, really pretty and European -looking!
(fun fact about the current queen: she loves to gamble,
and so there are so many like gambling places all over.
They're as common as an LDS chapel or an Arctic Circle in Utah)

So this week we worked a lot with our two investigators, Leah and Ting Ting. They are now BOTH scheduled for baptism on the 13th of June! It's Friday the 13th, which is rather ominous, but a member told us that if we get three baptisms on that day, it'll break the spell or curse or whatever. So I guess we're working on that now haha! 

Pictures of some more old buildings. Detail from the Maritime Museum I think. 

Also this week, I tried a Yorkshire pudding for the first time at a member's house. Don't be confused by the name. It's not pudding. It's like a biscuit thing you put gravy on and eat with roast and potatoes. They're really good. I also ate chips with salt and vinegar. Not bad, but I do prefer the American french fries. :) 

This past weekend was a HUGE football match, it was the FA cup, which apparently is important, and the two teams were Hull City (that's where I live) and Arsenal, a team from London. So Saturday we were told to not proselyte after 4 PM because people would be watching the match and/or getting drunk. So that was fun! We just visited some members and it was great. But we lost, which was sad. Next year we'll get that cup for sure!

A cute picture of the sisters just before district meeting!
And also you can check out the wonderful new skirt I bought last p-day, love it!

So now for something actually spiritual that I've learned this week, I have learned love and charity. Sometimes, when you are really trying to develop charity, it means that you need to love everyone. That includes those people who don't love you in return, the people who reject you and say sassy things to you and the hooligans who yell in your ear... I was thinking during personal study, feeling sorry for myself because sometimes people are mean, and I got the thought that "The Saviour loves everyone, even those who rejected Him and crucified Him. Art thou better than He? You're being selfish, Sister Larson." And it was so true! I have since then tried to have the love of all mankind that Nephi promises will bring us eternal life. It's not easy, trust me, but it is attainable and is something we could all work on.

I love you all! Enjoy the last weeks of school before summer! You are all amazing and I am so grateful for all of the support I get from you. Have a super week!

Love,
Sister Larson

Chapter 14: A new investigator and lots of goodies!

Hiya everyone! (quick side note, literally everyone here says "hiya" they think "hey" sounds so American and weird)

Leah (investigator) and I at the RS activity! 
We were learning how to make bags out
 of scarves, but I just tied a big one
 around my shoulders and made a cape
. i'd much rather be a wizard than
 have a posh looking bag... :) 

Well, this week has been super amazing!! First things first, we found a new investigator!!! Her name is Ting Ting, she's a first year university student, and she's from China. We found her street contacting. We were just having a nice conversation with her and then Sis. Huang brought up the church, and she asked Ting Ting if she was interested at all. She was like yeah, totally, and then Sis. Huang said, "Well, do you have time to talk about it?" and Ting Ting said, yeah right now! So both of us were surprised, but we said, uh okay sweet let's go! So we went to a lounge in the university and taught her lesson 1 about the Restoration. It was awesome.

My new, snazzy planner for this transfer. It's cute, huh?

Other funny story about Ting Ting: we challenged her to read the Book of Mormon, which she accepted, and said she could read 6 chapters by the next time we saw her a few days later. So when we were following up, she said, "I'm sorry, I only read one chapter! It was just really long!" So we were kinda confused, but we asked her what she read. She holds up this big chunk of the book and said, "I only got through 1st Nephi" and we said "The whole book??!!" and she said "Yeah" and then we were all like OH MY GOSH that's amazing! So she's just great. And then we cleared up the whole chapter/book thing. :)

Remember zi se de putao zhi? [purple grape juice] I found some at a Chinese store here.
It was a great trip down memory lane!
[Note: this was a staple at our dinner table when our family lived in china]

The other highlight of the week was yesterday, getting to talk to my family through Skype! It was absolutely amazing! I love how it felt like I was back at home, that my family was still my family, and we still have such fun together! 

Photo of Meagan talking to us on Skype.

Tidbit of British culture: They have these things called Jaffa cakes, which are like little soft cookies with orange jelly stuff on them dipped in chocolate. I think they're pretty good, but Sister Huang got sick of them. So while we were at a Chinese member's house, she basically forced this box of Jaffa cakes on us and Sister Huang was like, "Sister Larson LOVES those, give them to her!" So now I have a lifetime supply of Jaffa cakes. I'll never go hungry, haha.

Jaffa cakes. They're pretty decent. For British food. Just kidding, I really like them! 

American candy and dry ranch powder i got from an American member!
She's the best! I love Hershey's! And ranch! 

Well this week has been good with lots of miracles, and it's also been a week of growth as well. The weather has been sunny for a few minutes, then rainy for a few, then sunny, then rainy, etc etc. That's kind of how life is, but if you remember Pres. Uchtdorf's talk, then don't forget to thank Heavenly Father for the rain and the sunshine! Both are so important to the growth of flowers and trees, and they are so important to our spiritual growth as well. I love you all! Have a fantastic week and Happy Mother's Day to all of you mothers! Also, Happy Birthday to my baby brother, who's eleven years old now and not so much of a baby anymore! 

Ta, loves!

Sister Larson

Chapter 13: A bit of Word Fighting and a bit more Teaching

Dajia hao! [Hello everyone!]

Wow I have been in the field for a whole month! That is just insane, it still feels like yesterday when I came to Hull, scared out of my mind and totally overwhelmed! But I've gotten so used to it here at the same time, that I feel like I was born in Hull and that the totality of my existence has been here. 

So this week has been pretty great, we are working a lot with our two current investigators, Bruce and Leah, both of whom are Chinese. Bruce has been investigating the church for almost a year now, and still isn't baptized. We call him our "dry member" because he comes to church and the YSA FHE we put on  every week and yet he won't be baptized. So we've been reading the Book of Mormon with him these past two weeks to help him better understand it. He's really liked it so far and last week, he called us to set an appointment! It was just awesome.

Leah is a Chinese student who is really funny and is just so great. She has said before that she doesn't like to pray because she doesn't feel close enough to Heavenly Father to pray, so we're working on that. We had a great spur-of-the-moment lesson on faith with her, when we were planning to teach her Lesson 2, the plan of salvation. It was a great lesson and I'm glad that my companion and I were being led by the Spirit so we could teach well!

This week I have also seen some very interesting things that I have not seen before my mission. We saw a drunk guy keel over on the street and thought that he might have been dead. So we were wondering whether or not we should call 999 and if he was still breathing when a policeman flipped on his lights and came over and picked him up. So that was fun. :) 

Sister Huang is still so awesome. She's really funny. Because English isn't her first language, she'll say some things sometimes that aren't quite what I would say as a native English speaker. For example, if we pretend to argue, she says that we are "word fighting" and then if we start punching each other, which does happen haha, she says that it's "physical fighting". But she never says "arguing" or anything like that, which I think is funny. We have lots of fun and we are staying together for this transfer, yay! We are also now the only Chinese speakers in the zone, the other Chinese speaking Elder is being transferred to Newcastle.

My first district in the field!
With Sis. Tafengatoto, Sis. Huang, Sis. Pacis, me, Elder Veitch, and Elder Knoll.
We are all from different countries! Tonga, Taiwan, Philippines, USA, Canada, Austria!
It's a great district.

Well this week has definitely been better, but I've also learned that I can't change my circumstances, I can only change my attitude. Sometimes I'm tempted to be lazy and not work as hard as I could, or that I don't want to try speaking with Chinese people on the streets, but I have been really working on trying to be positive and willing to do what my leaders might ask. I know that our perspective on life is built entirely by us, that we can have a good life no matter what if we look at the bright side of things. I love you all and hope that you have a great week! Happy Mother's Day to all of the mothers, you are all so wonderful and it's because of you that these missionaries are out here serving. :) Ta, loves! Have a fantastic week!

Love,
Sister Larson