Elder Britton Holyoak : Proper Mint Week

How's it going everyone! This week has been "Proper Mint" as British people say. I was able to teach the 11 year olds in the ward, shake Russell M. Nelson's hand, and have tea (dinner) with the York 1 Sister Missionaries investigator Shawn.

On Wednesday my mission President came to our district meeting. I got interviewed by President Turvey and his wife. They're both amazing people. My trainer and I both think that President Turvey is so mellow and very loving. I'm really happy that I have him as my Mission President.

On Saturday, we had our Mission Conference. All of the missionaries in the England Leeds Mission came to the Huddersfield (near Leeds) chapel. I was able to see a bunch of the people that I came out with from the MTC there too! We listened to Russell M. Nelson and other General Authorities from the 70 speak. And yes, I shook President Nelson's hand and so did the other 206 missionaries in the mission right when he came in haha. It was a really spiritual experience for me. I was sitting in the third row from an apostle! He spoke with such a loving tone of voice. He had an actual sense of humor too. He joked around about how he's been making his way up the authorities in the church as the people above him were dying. The other speaker that I remember was Patrick Kearon of the 70. He's over the British Isles and some of the other European countries. He spoke about all of the aid that the church is giving to the 75 million refugees in Europe. He also told us to tell our families back home that, so there you go haha.

On Thursday I got the chance to teach some of the 8-11 year olds in the ward about missionary work. Elder Barney and I brought Twinkies and Gummies to reward the kids. It was a nice change from missionary work to be teaching future missionaries. Bishop Plumridge, in our ward, came to the lesson too and talked about the fun and spiritual experiences of his mission. At the end of the lesson, we had a competition on who could solve the Rubix Cube the fastest. I lost to Elder Barney by 2 seconds, I was pretty bummed.

On Wednesday we had tea over at the Sister Missionaries investigator Shawn's house. Shawn is a women in her mid 20s from the ghetto south part of London, so she's got a bit of a cockney accent. She is getting baptized on November 5th and she is hilarious! After stake conference on Sunday, Russell M. Nelson spoke there also, Shawn gave us a gospel rap. When we were over at her place, we gave her a lesson with her 2 year old bouncing all over the place.

I wish that we could be giving more lessons to people, but we have been getting a lot of potential investigators lately. I'll let you know if we schedule in the future. The ward is really good. I went to one of the ward member's funeral and the people that spoke there were full of the spirit. I've learned so much this week and I can't wait to keep working! Love you all cheers!

-Elder Holyoak