Family and Friends,
What's on the up and up guys?! Hope you are all doing well, I
miss you all loads so hit me up with an email if you haven't talked to me in
awhile. I hit my nine month mark of being in the UK last week. I can't believe
it's already been that long, sometimes it feels like i was living life back
home a month ago and sometimes it feels like I've been out here my entire life.
This last week was a good one, as always, it had its ups and downs but just
gotta keep my head up during the downs and enjoy the good times!
Last week I got to do exchanges again with elder hill, it's a
lot of fun being in the same district as someone from back home, but boy is it
weird at the same time. We had a good time knocking doors in the dumping rain
though. We dropped off our bikes at a members house on Tuesday night and when
we went to pick them up they invited us in to celebrate their son's birthday so
we got hamburgers, root beer, and cake to end off that night! Rack up another
tender mercy!!!
A member in the ward referred an older gentleman to us, named
Jxxohn, we've visited him twice now, he's a nice old chap and he should be coming
out to church with us this upcoming Saturday, he misses going to church and
feeling that kind of community. We did a lot of finding but for the most part,
our teaching pool hasn't been too great at keeping their commitments. It's
kinda disappointing on Sundays when no one shows up, but I just keep my head up
because I know we are working our tails off and the Lord knows that, good
things are ahead!
We went to Sutton Park again to talk to people. Sutton Park is
one of the largest parks in the UK and it's sick. We were probably only 150
yards into the park when all of the sudden we saw a group of cows just chilling
like 15 feet away from us. We then started talking to some people when all of
the sudden, and I swear on my life we both saw this, two wolves in the
distance. The cows got all scared and stood up as well, the wolves or whatever
they were then ran into the woods. I'm being completely honest about that,
because everyone here has told us that there is no chance we saw a wolf in
Sutton Park. I guess I'm just the boy who cried wolf.
We had a good lesson with PxxJ and Dxxanny about the priesthood. PxxJ
is so hooked on family history right now! He spent like 7 hours at the family
history centre this past week! His life is lit right now! Haha. We had some
good DA's this past week, especially at the Robertson family! We had interviews
with president and sister Leppard and also district meeting the same day. I
love P-Leppard! He hooked me up with some sweet sections in D&C! Our
district meeting/interviews got delayed like two hours because...they found an
active WW2 bomb next to the Aston train station, which we go over every time we
go to Walsall. They found it a few minutes after we left Aston last Monday to
go to Walsall so we had to have the zone leaders give us a lift back to Wylde
Green. They covered the bomb with tons of sand and blew it up but you could
hear it all the way from Wylde Green. Those Germans are back at it again!
One really cool experience from this week was on our way to
Sutton Park, and on the map I decided to go in the entrance of the park that
was near a golf course (I love golf) but I felt pretty good about that route.
On the way to the park on that route, we ran into a lady who broke down in
tears as we talked to her about the plan of salvation, her mom had passed away
recently. She didn't want to meet up again, but I know with all my heart she
was touched by the spirit as we testified to her that she would live with her
mom again. As we continued walking I felt like we needed to cross the street
where we immediately ran into a young man named Rxxeece. When we asked when he'd
want to meet up again, he said "well I'm free right now". It caught
me off guard, but we got to teach him the restoration and at the end of the
lesson, before we could ask for a return appointment, he asked "when can
we meet up again?" It was an amazing experience.
Just a quick ending: president uchtdorf gave a conference talk a
few years back on self evaluation, and in it he said "In these simple
words, “Lord, is it I?” lies the beginning of wisdom and the pathway to
personal conversion and lasting change." When we look inwards and focus on
where we can improve rather than pointing out the faults in others, that's when
we will grow and improve. There comes no growth through pointing fingers. It
takes humbling ourselves and asking the Lord to help us recognise our
weaknesses and asking him to help them become strengths. He will certainly
help, but never discourage.
Well I hope you all have a good week! I'm excited for another
week out here in the land of rain! Let's get hyped this week and let's get it!
Love you guys! 😘
Look unto Christ in every thought, doubt not, fear not ✌️
Elder Varner
Sent from my iPad
pic 1: the
homie hill
pics 2-4 and
video 1: sutton park
pic 5: robertson DA, theres like three robertson families in
this ward and they are all related
pic 6: boxing on someones door step with random gloves
pic 7: chillin with bowen
video 2: some of you will understand this, some of you are
gonna be hecka confused
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