Hello......

Hey family and friends,

This week I said a movie style goodbye with my mission father, we had to Skype the other half of our district in Harrogate, Trump, and my first week with my new companion Elder Peña.

Elder Barney is up in South Shields now. When we dropped him off at the station on Tuesday, we said our goodbyes in a very dramatic way. When he was inside the train, he looked at me through the window and put his hand on the glass. And naturally I ran up to his train and touched my hand back to his. We watched Tarzan the other week. Haha, we'll probably end up seeing each other during the mission Christmas party, but I'm gonna miss the loud Texan.

This week has been my first week with the man, the myth, the legend, Elder Peña from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He's a Spanish speaking basketball pro! I've been having a lot of fun trying to learn and communicate with him using the Spanglish that I know. He lived in Las Palmas, Spain for 2 years and played basketball before he left on his mission. I've been teaching him how to play guitar and he's been teaching me how to speak Spanish. 

District meetings are now going to be in Harrogate, so this Wednesday we were supposed to be taking a train there but it was snowing! The snow barley stuck on the ground, but apparently it was enough to delay the train. So we Skyped the Harrogate boys. Elder Campbell (my new district leader) opened the meeting with, "How's it going everybody, it's a been a pretty crazy day. It's snowing, we're Skyping, and Trump won the election!" Haha, yes it's everywhere here! Like I said before, the English people on the streets would much rather talk about Trump than Jesus. But it definitely is making it so we can talk to more people.

It's been a really good week of finding people to teach. I'll let you know how our future lessons go. We met a man in his 30s that I was able to talk about Pink Floyd with and we met a man from Gambia that sounded really excited to hear more from us! Also, we scheduled D for baptism and he said that he would love to come to church with us next week! I love you all! Cheers!

-Elder Holyoak

Final goodbyes at the train station

My new companion Elder Peña 

Boys in the Hood