trio! (Week 96, Stourbridge, England, Elder Kelleher and Elder Wilson)

wow it’s been one crazy week! one of the more random ones of my mission! i dropped off elder odle at the train station last Tuesday morning, it was kind of sad saying goodbye, we got on really well.  i picked up elder kelleher and elder Wilson and we got to work. it’s so weird being in a trio, I mean 3 random guys showing up to your door is a bit odd but we make it work. we are working both the stourbridge area and the woodsetton area because elder Wilson will be going back to woodsetton once his greenie comes in in July. 

we did find some success this past week! one cool experience was on Tuesday night. we were walking to a place we wanted to work at, and on the way I walked past a street and I felt a “nudge” to go and knock that street. i almost put aside that prompting but I decided to act on it and that street was bumping! we met some sick people on it! another day we were walking and I saw a young couple walking on the other side of the street, so I ran across the semi busy road and started talking to them! as we got talking one of them mentioned the loss of her sister and how that’s been hard on her, we testified of eternal families and the plan of salvation. it was such a good convo! im a lot more confident with recognising and acting on spiritual promptings than I used to be, it’s cool to see that improvement.

during some less effective finding time we called all the funeral homes in the area and put our names on the clergy list. who knows what will come from that. we had a sick ward western bbq night and it was so lit! so many people came and it was a blast! a random guy walked into church on Sunday as well, total miracle. he liked it a lot but as we taught him there’s a lot of concerns that came up, we will do our best with him but still a miracle! 

here’s a motivational quote from president hinckley: “You can be excellent in every way. You can be first class. There is no need for you to be a scrub. Respect yourself. Do not feel sorry for yourself. Do not dwell on unkind things others may say about you. Polish and refine whatever talents the Lord has given you. Go forward in life with a twinkle in your eye and a smile on your face, but with great and strong purpose in your heart. Love life and look for its opportunities, and forever and always be loyal to the Church. Never forget that you came to earth as a child of the divine Father, with something of divinity in your very makeup. The Lord did not send you here to fail. He did not give you life to waste it. He bestowed upon you the gift of mortality that you might gain experience—positive, wonderful, purposeful experience—that will lead to life eternal.”

each of you are a child of god, he knows you perfectly. he does love you, and you have everything on your side. after all, if god be for you, who can be against you?

i love you all!! don’t ever fredette it!

elder varner 

till i collapse (Week 95, Stourbridge, England, Elder Kelleher and Elder Wilson)

what’s good everyone! transfer calls came in yesterday and ill be ending my mission here in stourbridge with elder kelleher and elder Wilson will join us to make it a trio for half the transfer! trio? the grass is green! it’s gonna be so lit! 

this week was jam packed with things like door knocking, President and sister leppards last zone conference, blessings left and right, and more. it was a swell week. one highlight would have to be last Monday night, we stopped by a potential and he told us to stop by an hour later, so we did and he let us right in. As we sat in his living room his girlfriend walked in and joined all of us. We did a short HTBT and restoration and bam! that’s how you get a super cool young couple to be investigating the only true church of Jesus Christ on the earth!

we were walking in this underground subway thing and started talking to two chav guys. they were more respectful than the typical chav and when we told him that there’s a prophet on the earth today, he looked at us with so much focus, we taught a bit of the restoration to him and he turned to his friend and said in essence “do you recognise the magnitude of what these guys are saying?” It hit me in that moment how incredibly important our message is. i testify that god speaks through prophets in our time, and I would invite you all to listen to what he is saying today.

a good friend of mine who is also in the ending stages of his mission sent a pretty motivating email recently, he talked about how in a race, the last lap is no time to slow down, I can picture Christ as my coach saying to me as I start this last lap of my mission “I GAVE MY ALL TO YOU, NOW GIVE IT YOUR ALL ELDER VARNER!” I’m so incredibly excited to work my absolute hardest til the day I see you all again. 

a scripture that fits this day and also the last twenty two months of my life is Christ’s counsel to each of us: “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it”

major happy birthdays to my grandma, my brother Jake, my uncle Jeff, and my sister Halle! I hope you all have a wonderful day. I love each of you! Look unto Christ in every thought, doubt not, fear not ️

Elder Varner

angels to bear us up...and gypsies (Week 94, Stourbridge, England, Elder Odle)

“some of my boys said some people were planning on jumping you two but my boys sorted them for you trust me I got you two”

that’s the text we got from our fourteen year old gyspy friend this past week. what a week. filled with highs and lows and some twists and turns. the first three days of the week were exchange after exchange, it was a blast! i got to spend some time with elder Wilson from Texas and elder chick from australia. we knocked the chav towers. by the way I learned that chav stands for Council House and Violence, so we decided that’d be a good place to knock. the people were more humble there, and every door that didn’t answer got a law of chastity or word of wisdom Leaflet because god knows they need it.

lots of service this week which is great! it’s so nice to serve others because it allows me to forget about myself, and when I do that I’m so much happier!! we taught some good lessons this last week. our most solid friend dropped us and that was kind of hard, but I know we are doing all we can out here, it’s just hard sometimes. 

i had the chance to check out President Nelsons Devotional to the youth and I think it applies to all of us! check it out and take his counsel seriously! treat it as if it came from the mouth of god himself, after all the lord said “whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same.” 

i also listened to a great talk by sister kearon, she said “Your Father in Heaven loves you, whoever you are, whatever you are struggling with. You are enough. You are enough. He loves you just the way you are, right here, right now, in all your beautiful messiness. But He also loves you enough not to let you stay the way you are right here, right now. He has much bigger plans for you! Don’t listen to the voices in your head--that may have been there from your childhood--that tell you you can’t change, you aren’t good enough, and you will fail yet again. Listen only to the whisperings of the Holy Spirit and “the pleasing word of God … which healeth the wounded soul” that confirm your infinite worth and God’s loving reassurance that you can do it.”

I testify that God is our loving Heavenly Father. He has so much in store for each of us. That catchy phrase, “I am a child of God”, is absolutely true. Let me be clear, Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love each of you. No matter what, whether you’ve strayed off the path, or if you don’t even believe in them. I want it recorded in heaven that I testified to the people of England and all of you that I said in the simplest of terms, that God lives, his son Jesus Christ lives, and that their love is unfailing.

a major congrats to all the homies who graduated this past week! and an even bigger happy birthday to my awesome mom! thank you for all that you do, I love you! and I love each of you guys! don’t fredette that!

Elder Varner

we got a runner! (Week 93, Stourbridge, England, Elder Odle)

hey everyone!

thanks for tuning in for another episode across the pond! this week was another fast one and it was pretty good! we are working hard out here and are doing all we can to move forward the work here. 

we taught our friend sxxxhaun again this week. we were waiting for him at the chapel and we got a call from some other missionaries who said they saw this guy running to the chapel. yep, our homie was running to the chapel to meet with us! that’s dedication! sxxxxhaun took some bumps this week, but he’s so close to being fully committed! we showed him the film “how rare a possession” and he LOVED it!

as usual, lots of door knocking. while tracting we met a young man named Bxxxxn. he’s a gypsy who just got out of jail for stabbing someone, I can promise you he’s more safe now than you think. but we had a solid convo with him and got a message from him which pretty much said “I told all my friends about you guys and how sound you are and they are gonna be looking out for you and after you”. So now we have a flippin gang of gypsys that are backing us up, how dope is that?!

other notable events:

• while biking on the canal there was a group of chavs riding towards me and they were headed literally straight at me, and as I moved out of the way one of them did a wheelie and tried to kick me in the face, I dodged it, but it was way too close for comfort
• while talking to an older man on his doorstep he randomly stopped talking, pointed his cain at a cat like a gun and yelled “bang bang!”

other stuff happened as well but that’s all I feel like typing for now. i was reading in the Book of Alma this last week and Mormon rebukes a man named Pahoran not knowing all the situation. pahoran could have taken serious offence but he in essence said “you rebuked me, but it mattereth not”. David Bednar once said “One of the greatest indicators of our own spiritual maturity is revealed in how we respond to the weaknesses, the inexperience, and the potentially offensive actions of others. A thing, an event, or an expression may be offensive, but you and I can choose not to be offended--and to say with Pahoran, “it mattereth not.”’. No one inflicts being offended on to each of us, being offended is a choice, and if we choose it, we are halting our progression. forgive and forget!

i love you all! thanks for being true homies! make it a lit week!

Elder Varner