Happy Birthday to the new District Leader!

Ever feel buried under past mistakes?

http://www.mormonchannel.org/youth-videos?v=1795507066001

Through Christ's atonement we can all be reclaimed.

We've all made mistakes in the past. Even long after the fact we often have the temptation to go back and dig up old garbage. Through the atonement and mercy of Christ we can move beyond the person we were in the past to become the person God intends for us to be.

"...though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." -- Isaiah 1:18

My destroyed shoes, filled with hot glue, so they last a bit longer!

This week was a bit of a slower week, we had a lot of appointments cancel, and the backups we had were all knocking on doors, so we had a lot of knocking this week! We had some good success, but a lot of the week was enduring rather than enjoying, but it was still fun.

We found a nice young family last week, that we taught this week, and have an appointment for this upcoming week! They are really cool, and their cousin Nikita just got baptized Saturday, so they already know a bit, and are excited to learn about it for themselves!

Oh, and I don't know if you realize, but Squash over here is not a vegetable, but it is juice concentrate that you mix with water to make juice! And biscuits of course are cookies. So same name, but not even near the same thing! LOL

We have the family history center in our chapel here, so we actually get to use nicer computers this week! WOOOH! Afton will be missed, I really enjoyed seeing her each week when we went over to give her the sacrament, she was a funny old lady. Send the Kaltschmidt's my love! I am getting a new companion so I hope he will enjoy doing the video journals as much as Elder Smith! Elder Smith is moving, but we don't know where yet! We will find out later today. Elder Copper is leaving the district and I will be the District Leader here.

I love you guys, and thanks for the weird kitten card! (Elder Brown turns 20 on Tuesday)

 Filipino food!

Elder Smith and Elder Brown

 Elder Smith

Bestest Creation!

Bought some new cloths in England.

This week went by extremely fast, but it was very successful. Elder Cooper and I worked my area here on exchange on Tuesday. We had a good day, and were able to learn from one another which was great. We had a lot of success and saw some miracles, which uplifted us and taught us. I really enjoyed it! All the people we taught were girls. 12-20 year olds. Some of them wanted us to go clubbing with them. Not going to work because of several reasons.One of these girls we taught later on in the week and seems pretty interested. The rest of the week was just as successful as well. We had some really good sit down teaches, and also found many new people to work with. T__ is progressing very well, but was quite ill this weekend and wasn't able to come to church. She is reading a lot and praying as well. We are hoping to get her to the visitors center at the temple this week, and she is excited to go! We had six less active members come for church this week, which was awesome! We have quite a few of them who are really ready to come back fully, and we have been able to help them and watch them progress which has been really cool. We are hoping to get a few more baptismal dates here, and almost got another one on Sunday, but he is not comfortable with a date yet. He said he would be baptized as soon as he knows it is all true, and he has committed to come to church, read and pray, and is going to be meeting with us weekly, which is great! So as you can see, we DO work here! All of the fun happens after planning and writing in our journals. We put our priorities on the most important things! The best ones usually happen on P-day though!

Sunday we were riding home with the bishop to his house to eat lunch when we got hit from behind by a guy that's foot slipped off the break. That was interesting. The bishop got out of the car to see if they were ok. We were all fine.

As for the cake, I am surprised none of you thought the kool aide was a good idea! It was perfect! Did you see how it turned out!? The kool-aide helped out with the appearance as well as taste! I attached a photo for you guys that just shows you how good that cake was! The second wasn't as good, because it was orange kool aide instead of cherry, but it still tasted great! 

Chocolate Orange Kool-Aide Upside Down Cake

Created by Elder Brown and Elder Smith 

Chocolate Orange Kool-Aide Upside Down Cake

Milk chocolate digestive

caramel wafers ( kind of like a giant kit-kat, but more caramely)

Nougat pillows

orange kool-aide

Chocolate mini-rolls

Jaffa Cakes (one of the few unique and delicious things in Britain! The taste a lot like the orange stick things that Dad always gets at Christmas time, but they have a muffin like base)

Peaches

Peanut butter mix-Chunky Peanut butter, hot chocolate mix, brown sugar, milk

Almonds

Vanilla extract

white chocolate pieces

cinnamon

Chocolate Cherry Kool- Aide Upside Down Cake (This is the better recipe)

Milk Chocolate Digestive Biscuits (American replacement would be some sort of graham cracker with one side covered in chocolate)

Custard creams (Basically a vanilla Oreo style cookie)

Chocolate mini-rolls ( I don't know what you would find over there, but it basically is a mini Swiss roll, kinda like those chocolate Twinkie things)

Cherry kool-aide

Bannoffe pie candy stick (you wont find one of these over there, but it is banana and toffee flavor)

All Butter Fudge (probably can find something similar over there, should be called the same thing)

Ginger Biscuits (these are nasty German things and I wouldn't recommend putting them in there, they didn't really change anything)

Apples (that's pretty easy to find)

Peanut butter mix-chunky peanut butter, brown sugar, milk, weather's original ( all easy to find over there)

Almonds ( once again easy)

Marshmallow (these are harder to get over here than there, you could even use the marshmallow puff stuff)

Cinnamon

Vanilla extract

Nougat pillows (basically some sort of chocolate filled cereal, I'm sure there are all sort of possible replacement over there)

This cake is like the gospel, you won't know if it is good or not, unless you try it! That cake was like my bestest creation!  We bought some KFC on my year mark and the stamp said we bought it the next day so some how I traveled in time. ha! ha! This was quite funny!

Time flies on the mission!!!! The more I think about it, the more blown my mind becomes!!! It does not feel like it has been a year!!!! I remember how fast last school year went, and when I think about that it scares me at how soon I will be leaving the mission! The time really is short!

Hope you guys have a great week! I love you more than all the kool-aide in the whole world!

We stop by some peoples place and they told us to come back in one hour so we did but they were not there so we left this card with this scripture on it. 

 I don't even know what the giant steel ball is, but it was cool!

The sign on the door says, 

Village lock up. 

This grade II listed building was last used for custodial purposes since 1842.

The stir fry was of my own invention, and was one of the best things I have ever made, I would suggest it as a meal to anyone! (cinnamon, ginger, soy sauce, oyster sauce, chicken, onions, bell pepper, sweet chilli sauce, pineapple.)

How sad is this?

One year mark!

 http://www.mormon.org.uk/yvette

Does Structure In Life Constrain You?
As we have faith we are able to find freedom in structure.
Yvette is a math teacher and she believes that her faith helped her have structure in her life that brought a greater amount of freedom.  Her life has not been easy but through those challenges she has learned that there is no 'cookie-cutter' person.  No matter what type of person you are faith will help you accomplish great things.  Through Yvette's faith she won the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching.  What has your faith led you too achieve?

"For behold, I am God; and I am a God of miracles; and I will show unto the world that I am the same yesterday, today, and forever; and I work not among the children of men save it be according to their faith."  -2 Nephi 27:23

 

 

We went on exchange with the Zone Leaders, so that Elder Herrod could drive me to my appointment in Woking. That was fun! Our year mark, both of us! We played basketball in Welling, London with loads of african kids. My health is fine, I just need more fluids than most people, but Dr Jaques gave me the OK for any physical activity of any kind. I have been downign water as often as possible, and it is helping fairly well. Still get lightheaded, but not as bad. Mostly the trip was A WASTE OF GAS, MISSION FUNDS, AND THE LORDS TIME! We drove about 1.5 hours to have a cup of free hot chocalte, and get told what we already were told about a week ago in a letter from them, and then we drove about 1 hour back. Traffic was better on the way back. Oh, well, at least I don't have heart cancer!

 Elder Brown and Elder Herrod both are 1 year out!

 

You think the first year went by fast! The second is supposed to be even faster! This week we were really blessed! We saw many miracles and were able to have a lot of success! T_ is doing really well, she relapsed on the WofW a bit, but is keeping strong and trying hard. She said she really wants to work for the 30th of Aug, and is doing her best. She is following her reading calander and even reading extra from the Book of Mormon as well! 

 

LOL Actually, we went camping this week! Made our own cake, and just had fun all around!

 

 

 

                 This is our Tent!

            Hot Kool Aid!
         We made a skit to go with it LOL!

 

A few worldly Objects in this Posh area!

 

                Nice Cars!

 

 

 

 

 

Spidy and the Cops!

Does God Actually Care About You?

 http://www.mormonchannel.org/video/mormon-messages?v=3701964025001
Your Heavenly Father loves you perfectly.  He will answer your prayers in His timing and His own way, but He will always answer.

 Many of us have wondered if God knows us or if He even exists.  Todd was someone who made fun of people who thought God was real, and so he was not surprised when he did not receive an immediate answer to a prayer.  Two years after his fervent prayer Todd recieved an answer.  The answer he recieved was that God does exist and He wants you on His side today!
"Regardless of our current state there is hope for us.  No matter our distress, no matter our sorrow, no matter our mistakes, our infinitely compassionate Heavenly Father desires that we draw near to Him so that He can draw near to us." - Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Last week I talked about the flat I live in.  Here is a picture of the Mansion!

The picture I was sitting in front of last post was a hospital. Also to explain the picture of elder Smith and I sitting was a picture of us at the bus stop waiting until a guy came by and told us the bus was not running. We ended up having to walk an hour and forty five minutes to get home The police had blocked off the roads and police tape was everywhere.  It was around 9:00-9:30 pm and we didn't get home until 10:45. We hadn't eaten anything and we were so tired and hungry when we did get home. We found out latter that someone had hit a policemen and then ran so A man hunt was going on. That's why the bus wasn't there. The policemen has a spinal injury but is recovering. The guy that hit him turned himself in.

Elder Brown being Manley

This week was even more interesting than last week! We had a lot of miracles, were able to get member involvement for nearly every appointment we had, and some of them were a direct result of praying for inspiration when we really needed it. God blessed us with the inspiration we needed each time, and we had great success! We have a new Baptismal date we picked up this week, T_. She is super solid! She was a former investigator, who we called up and she answered on the first try and we set an appointment for a few days later. She said she had just been thinking about missionaries right before we called! We met with her twice this week, taught her the restoration, half of the plan of Salvation, and the Word of Wisdom! She accepted and understood everything very well, and has a baptismal date for the 30th of Aug 2014! She fasted with us on Sunday for her to be able to give up smoking and coffee by the 30th and to be ready for baptism. She came to church and had a great experience in testimony meeting, and learned a lot in gospel principles! We are really excited for her, and are going to teach her tomorrow about the rest of the Plan of Salvation and about Temples and Family History.

I have had some intense moments, crazy experiences, and hilarious situations nearly everyday in this area! Man the experiences we had taught me a lot, and I reflect on the things I have learned a lot as well. I keep learning so much! We decided to start doing video journals together. You will literally have hours of fun from us this week! I figured you guys would enjoy feeling a bit closer and more informed on my experiences, and I hope it increases your faith! 

We are pretty tired in some of them! In each video we say the date first thing, so you will know what order they are in. We started on the 25th of July and have done one each day.

We got flogged a couple of times (this means are appointments cancelled on us) but then ended up with 3 new investigators all on the 30th of July. We also had a great water gun fight with some kids from a family we had a dinner appointment with.

The other Elders here are Elder Piseth from Cambodia and Elder Cooper from Northern California.

 I got a letter from the hospital telling me they couldn't find anything, but they still want me to come in for a follow up consultation.

 Here are a few pictures for you.