Monday, May 8, 2017

ballidino (Week 38, Wylde Green, England)

Family and friends and fellow byu fans,
This week was one full of high highs and low lows. There were days this week that felt like they took weeks and then days that just flew by, thanks for tuning into another episode across the pond!

I'll start out with some of the good stuff: our district now includes me, elder Kinard, elder scanlon, elder hill, sister funk, and sister funk's greenie who will be coming in tomorrow. It's a pretty fun district and the next transfer should be a good one! We had district meeting last week and I gave a training on enduring to the end, following that we did some district finding in the Walsall town centre, me and elder hill were together for that. As part of district finding we did finding Bingo, I'll send a picture of an example of that kind of bingo sheet, but it's for talking to people. We talked to a guy who had the same name as elder hill, like his name was Ben hill, it was uncanny.

We had some good lessons this last week with some investigators, a good new person we are working with is a lady named Dyyenise, she is from Ireland, super cool, but didn't come to church yesterday, none of our investigators came to church which was kinda disappointing. We got flogged (where people bail on an appointment without telling us) a ton this week, left and right. It was hard not to get discouraged, and on top of that I've felt pretty sick the last week. I finally stopped taking lansoprazole on Saturday and i already feel a bit better which is nice, I'm going to the doctor again tomorrow so hopefully we will finally get somewhere. Any advice on just staying hopeful and positive would be very welcomed. I think I've managed to stay pretty positive through it all but there have been some low moments this week. As always, that song called balidino has helped me keep hopeful when it says "I believe that there is light up ahead", I've really been holding onto that.

Alright enough negative stuff, last p-day for our last one of the transfer we went to a really sketchy bowling ally in Walsall, it was only 5 quid (dollars) for two rounds of it, but it was super obvious why it was only that much, the bumpers would randomly come up, sometimes it wouldn't reload pins, it was a disaster but we still managed to have a good time! To fix one of the bumpers, elder campbell ran out to the middle of the lanes and some big worker came out and was ticked off. I believe That guy was a drug dealer I swear, we thing that the place is a money launderer.

We had plenty of dinners this last week with people like pj and Sonia, the ogradys, the poxon family, and the Owens. This ward is prime! We also taught seminary again which was fun as always. It's cool to be in a ward where we can help the youth, and there's a lot of them. The young men's president complimented us on how much our work with the young men is helping and it was just so nice to hear that we are making a difference with some of them. I know I loved going out with the missionaries back home before leaving and it helped me so much, so I'm thrilled to give back a little here. 

I really felt gods love this week in several hard moments. One moment where I felt this love was in a lesson and the person asked why we call god "Heavenly Father", and I teared up a bit as I bore my testimony that god truly is our father, that he cares about us so much more than we could ever comprehend, he loves us like a father loves his children because he is our father. Another moment where I felt his love was in church as we were singing "count your blessings". I was blessed to see things for a moment with a better eternal perspective.

For a spiritual thought I just really want to bear my testimony that god loves us so much, he's happy when we are happy, he's devastated when we are sad and discouraged, he wants to hear from us and we can really communicate with him through prayer. Even if you haven't spoken with him in months or years, he still wants to hear from each of you, his love is infinite. One of his greatest acts of love was giving his only begotten son, Jesus Christ. He wants us all to succeed and to come back to him to live with him forever. No matter how far you feel you are from him, if you turn to him he will be waiting there with open and loving arms.

I hope you guys have a good week, I'll try to do the same! Happy mothers day to all you mothers out there and mother figures! Shout-out to my grandma Alice and my grandma Jayne and also my step mom Joy who is awesome! Crazy that I'm skyping home again this Sunday! Love you all! I mean that! Have a lit week!

Elder Varner

Sent from my iPad

pics 1-2: last pics with the crew
pic 3: 'merica! 
pic 4: the new squad!
pic 5: the homie ben hill ft random hippie ben hill
pic 6: THE COOLEST VIEW EVER which we ride past every morning
pic 7-8: DAs at PJs

video 1: swing still on point










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