Elder in England: Week 9: I have a new trainer and he is exactly one foot shorter than me!

Goooood morning!

This has been a long, full week of experiences! It seems like I've lived a month's worth of experiences within the last week.

First off, transfers. Because I was a new missionary and trainers usually stay together with their trainees for the whole 12 weeks in the same area, we didn't think either one of us was going to be transferred. Then we got a call Tuesday night saying that Elder Zarse was being transferred to Northampton to be a Zone Leader. I can still hear him saying, "Are you sure, President?" We were both pretty surprised, and even though he was sad to leave such a great area, he was still pretty excited. He LOVES driving, and he gets his own car where he's going, so that's all he talked about up until we left each other at the train station.

I actually was going to meet my new companion at the mission office since he was running late, but we accidentally met along the way. His name is Elder Evans, and he's from Centerville, Utah. He's been serving for about 6 months now, and I think this might be his first time training as well. He's really relaxed about things, so hopefully that'll help me lower my stress level a little bit. He's only been to Church here once, but he already loves the members. We were just walking down the street the other day past one of the members' homes when we saw the member call and wave out the window for us to come in and have ice cream. These members are some of the sweetest, kindest people I've ever met. I don't know how I'm ever going to leave this area.

We've also found a lot of people this week, but I'll just mention three that come to mind. One day when we were just walking down the street, we said hi to a woman who was walking and talking on her phone. She stopped and talked to us, and when we asked if there was any way we could meet with her again, she straight up gave us her address and told us to come by sometime.

Another day when one of our investigators wasn't at home when we were planning to meet her, we went tracting around her house and found H. She said that even though she was getting married on Monday, she said she'd love to meet with us and hear more about what we believed. That lesson with her didn't go as well as we'd hoped, and she sent us a long, confused text later, but we're hoping to either meet with her and clear things up or to refer her to another set of elders in the area she's moving to.

The final and most interesting person we met this week was D. We had just finished our last meeting at Church, and as we were going around saying hi to members, we noticed there was someone sitting in the chapel in casual clothes. We went up and started talking to him, and he told us he'd been going through a lot of really big problems recently. He'd been drinking and smoking outside when he saw the Church, and he thought he might find some help or comfort there, so he went inside. He told us that he used to have faith and that he wanted to have faith again. We took him into another room and talked with him a bit about what he could do to gain faith in God. In the middle of the lesson, he pulled out a newspaper and showed us exactly what problems he was having. It turns out we might not see him again because he might be in prison by next week, but he said he'd try to come to Church again next week. Even if we don't see him again, I could see that he felt something as we talked and prayed with him, and that was a big testimony-builder for me to see how the Spirit can help the people we teach.

A really good experience I had this week was with an argumentative person we stopped on the way back to our flat for the evening, R. It seemed like we were getting somewhere at first, but it quickly became apparent that all he wanted to do was debate and prove us wrong. My companion had been talking to R for a few minutes when R turned to me and said, "You've been awful quiet, what do you have to say?" This was the question and the situation I'd been dreading for a very long time, being put on the spot like that. But instead of freezing up, somehow I was able to calmly respond and teach him about the gospel. Through experiences like these, I've gained a testimony that when we listen and open our mouths, the Spirit will guide us to say exactly what that person needs to hear.

That's all the time I have for this week. Hope to hear from all of you soon! Love you!

Elder McOmber

Funnies of the Week:

At transfers, some of the elders told me I didn't sound like an American - they told me I had more of an English accent than an American accent. SUCCESS.

One day into the new transfer, my new trainer assigned me to read a chapter on stress in our "Adjusting to Missionary Life" book.