Lots of community service!

It's been another busy week here! We work the whole of the island between the 4 Missionaries. My companion and I cover Vale, St. Peter Port , St. Sampson, and Castel. Basically the north half of the island. I have seen much of my area. I have been to each of the parishes that I just listed, but haven't been to the other Elders area at all really.

Gernsey Island

People generally have an English accent, but a lot of immigrants live here, from Portugal, and Latvia. Another interesting fact for you, there are a few people who live on the island and are in their 80's and have never left their own parish! (A parish is kind of like a county. St. Peter port is one) They have never left for vacation, never for anything. Lived in the same place for their entire lives!! Crazy right!?

We are focusing on finding right now, most of the less-actives we are already working with relatively often, or they have no interest whatsoever. It is weird to know basic information about all the less actives in the area. Most areas, there are too many for you to ever know them all, but here, it is easier than getting to know active members in an average ward! There are just so few of them here. Finding seems to be a bit boring right now though, because we just do the same thing, but we are working on some new ideas. 

One thing that is really cool about this area that I have never seen in any other area is the amount of community service we do here. Most areas in the mission just serve the members occasionally and if they are lucky, one of their neighbors,etc. But here, we volunteer at a non-profit food kitchen (once every other week), a charity shop (once a week), and we sing hymns at elderly care homes (about once a week or every other week). I am impressed at how well the missionaries have established themselves in the community here! 

This week we were knocking a road that we had felt inspired to knock while we were planning, and one man opened the door and was like "come in, come in!" and we both thought that maybe he didn't realize who we were, but then he said "you're the Mormon guys right?" and we were like "yeah!!" We taught him the restoration and set up another appointment, but he is Greek orthodox, and when we saw him two days later for our teach, we taught him about the Book of Mormon, he committed to read it, but said he would never become a Mormon, and that he didn't want to waste our time, so we just told him to call us if he changes his mind. All of that happened in 72 hours. Probably one of the shortest lived investigators I have ever had. 

I took a tumble on the bike last week going down a hill in the rain and my companion suddenly stopped because we missed the turn, so I braked and the tires slipped and down I went with the bike! NO blood, NO tears, just a small hole in my trousers and a few bruises. It was fun to laugh about it later.

I have some really cool pictures for you but can't send them until next week probably.

I love you all! Have a wonderful week!

Elder Brown