Elder Britton Holyoak : Will I stay or will I go now?

How's it going family and friends. Transfer calls were yesterday and I'm staying here in York with Elder Barney! Our district is going to look a lot different now, compared to our all sister district (sistrict). We have 3 teams of Elders and 1 team of sisters now. The two sets of Elders are in Harrogate, just west of York.

A lot of cool things happened this week including: doing family history for an anti-Mormon man and exchanges with the one and only Elder Shäffer!

This week has flown by. We had a district meeting on Wednesday and it was packed with Elders and Sisters. The sister training leaders, AP's, Zone leaders, and our district was there. Elder Barney presented a really good district meeting focused on finding. It was also a good chance to get to meet other people. On Thursday, we had exchanges with the zone leaders again. I had so much fun with Elder Shäffer! I look up to him so much! He's so genuine with people on the street and he's a wizard at talking with everyone. We worked in the York 2 area, which is basically the other half of York that I never get to see. We pretty much street contacted all day, which left me completely exhausted. We cheated a little though, because he had a car to get us around. English driving is so dodgy! The streets are really narrow and the left hand side still feels really awkward. It was so nice having a car for that day and giving the busses a break.

We talked to a lot of people going to Uni (college). One of them looked exactly like the Two Door Cinema Club lead singer. I wanted to get a picture with him, but he was in a rush. I had so much energy that night and I know that the Spirit was helping me out. I realized that day how missionary work is supposed to be done. Sometimes I feel like I'm no good at talking to people on the street, but I've learned to stop comparing myself to other missionaries and focus on growing every day. The difference between depending on my own abilities and help from the Spirit is so apparent.

We have a lot of things coming up in the England Leeds Mission. Russell M. Nelson is coming to speak at an all mission conference on October 22nd. All mission conferences are really rare and only happen every other year. Being able to hear President Nelson speak in person is so amazing! Also, General Conference is coming up and I don't think that I've ever really looked forward to it until now. I'm really excited we're going to get together as a zone and watch it.

One funny experience that happens this week was that a man came up to us really confrontational and telling us bad things about the church. We were just being patient and answering his questions without getting angry back at him. He then calmed down and asked us if we could see if he's related to a name that he had. He knew that we were into family history and the conversation turned completely around. We gave him a Book of Mormon and told him that we would check out the names that he gave us. That was a really good learning experience for me.

I know that this post is a little longer, but there's one more thing that I totally forgot to mention and that is that we got a new investigator. Her name is Donna and she's living with her friend. They're both in there 30's. Donna instantly let us in when we were knocking on her street. We taught her the Plan of Salvation and the Spirit was so strong there. Then her friend came into the house while we were teaching. Her friend sounded a little interested. We're seeing Donna tomorrow at a park and I really hope that the teaching appointment goes through. James is still scheduled for his baptism on the 8th and we're still working on getting D to church. I love it out here in York! We have lots of teaching appointments this week and I'm excited to finally get teaching! I'll let you know how it goes. Cheers!

-Elder Holyoak