First Month in Brid

Bula familia nehowma! Here's another beautiful Brid update comin at cha. This week we went to Leeds for some more good old Zone Training, we helped a lady move out of her house upstairs from a Chippy, we taught a really good lesson with our new friend and British people love country boy accents.

So this Wednesday we took a train over to York and spent the night in the Zone Leader's flat. In the morning we took a coach over to Leeds for Zone training. It was a combined meeting with the Leeds Zone so I got to see some missionaries that I haven't seen for a while. It was so good seeing Peña, Elder Campbell and Cottrell again! Peña sat behind me during the meeting and poked at me and took selfies on my iPad haha. The actual training itself was brilliant. We had a testimony meeting in the middle. It was amazing being in a room filled with missionaries pouring out their hearts and bearing their own individual witnesses of the truth that they share with people everyday. The spirit was so apparent and I felt extra excited to do missionary work after walking out of that room. So yeah, that was a really cool experience that I thought I'd share with you all. 

We helped a lady move her furniture out of her house this week as well. She's moving to York and yes I recognized the exact street that she's moving on to. It's always fun walking couches and fridges down a flight of stairs. She lived above a "chippy" or fish n chips shop that she owned.

Now for the best part of this letter, the man that we've been teaching. I'll just call him Scott on the blog to conceal his name and I chose Scott because he loves the film Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Scott is the same young man that we met on the bus the other week that we helped move into his flat. HE CAME TO CHRUCH! He came to church with his 2 year old daughter a bit late, but came soon enough to get a glimpse of sacrament meeting and hear Elder Mills talk. Also btw, the members love Elder Mills accent. He's got kind of an American accent from the south and the British member love it. But back to Scott, he came and we gave him a little chapel tour. As we walked by paintings, he just asked us what they were and it was such a natural way of teach him about the church. When we walked over to the baptismal font we taught him about Jesus getting baptized and how much this can help him in his life. He told us that he felt calm and peaceful as we were talking to him about it. Ah! It's so exiting I love being a missionary! I'll let all of you know how our lesson goes.

During P Day today, we went over to Brother Allots and helped him clean up some of his music recording equipment. Afterwards he let me jam out in his studio for a little I got a little video for you guys haha. 

Hope you all have a nice week, there's your update from Elder Holysmokes, CHEERS!

Back with my York boyz

Peña's selfie

Candy floss aka Cotton Candy

The British are really serious about cleaning up after their dogs.

     

Hi, you alright mi wee Americans! It's been a really rockin' week here in Brid. We did service for 3 different people, I met tons of people that are into rock music and we found a refrigerator and put it into our flat.

Like I said at the start, it's been a really rocking week. I had tea on Tuesday at Brother Allot's. He is a hardcore rock fan haha. He gives guitar lessons and plays bass in his cover band for a living. He has HIS OWN RECORDING STUDIO IN HIS HOUSE! We ate some really spicey chilly and chatted about music. He has a brilliant wife from Ireland and 2 daughters. One of his daughters is thinking about serving a mission. In other rock news, our branch mission leader is a rocker as well. Brother Stevens is a super funny man and we're planning a genius fireside for the branch.

This week was our week of service. We replaced Jean and Sonia's wallpaper on Saturday. They're both lovely members that we've been teaching and helping them get back to church. We cleaned the chapel this week as well. I did most of the hovering or vacuuming for the Americans. Don't worry dad, I made sure that it had the Top Hat Cleaning first class touch, haha. 

The other service that we did was for a young man we met on the bus. He's just moving into his new flat in Brid and guess what street he's moving onto? Our street Trinity Road! So we live super close to him. Mental innit! We moved all of his furniture and other belongings in and of course left him with a Book of Mormon. We're teaching him tomorrow and I'm buzzing! Before we said bye to him he told us, "Thank you guys so much! This was not a coincidence that we met. I've been looking for a church to get my daughter christened into as well!" We will of course teach him that it takes more than sprinkling water on an infant to baptize them, next time haha!

So in our flat we have 2 mini fridges and we've been complaining about how there isn't enough space. We were walking outside near our flat and we saw a large fridge just there for the taking. You see here in England people flog (get rid of) a lot of their crap outside of their houses. It's like spring cleaning year round! So long story short, we carried the fridge into our flat, cleaned it out and now we have a new fridge! 

This week has been mint. I'm just so grateful to be involved in this work and getting to know Christ more. I love these people so much, even though the English can get on my nerves sometimes haha. It's so true what King Benjamin says in Mosiah 2:17, "When ye are in the service of your fellow beings, ye are only in the service of your God." 

Hope you all have a good one! Ta peeps! 

-Elder Holyoak 

Fruit tea that I'm drinking

The Priory Church of St. Mary, Bridlington

Bridlington Pier

Brother Allot's fetching recording studio!

Hahahahaha...This happened near my flat.

Our mission newspaper...Check out the bottom of the first page.

2nd week in Brid

Hello, hello my American friends.  My second week in Brid (Bridlington) has been super decent. It's been full of Blink-182 and snow and tea at the branch President's house in an amazing location.

My 2nd week here in Brid has been treating me well. We've been getting a lot of wind, rain and a bit of snow lately. We made some little snowmen from the snow that stuck on the cars. So with the whole Blink-182 thing haha, a bunch of members have randomly brought up how they're big fans of that band and it's become an inside joke between Elder Wilkey and I. One of the less actives has actually met Tom Delong, the lead singer, and he was telling me all about it today.

Last P-Day the branch president, President Gregory, invited us over for tea at his bungalow, so we could talk about how the branch is doing. He lives in a village just outside of Brid called Flamborough. It's a beautiful area! We did some finding, but it's mainly full of retired people. When we were there we saw on the map "Flamborough Castle" so we were expecting an awesome castle. As we went around the corner, we started laughing when we saw the tiny remains of what is left of it in a horse pasture, haha!

The work has been a bit slow lately. We've been mainly getting to know the members and the area. There's a lot of former investigators that the last lads in the area worked with and I'm excited to work with them. 

On Wednesday, we went over to York for some zone training and interviews. Brother Stevens gave us a ride over, instead of us having to take the train. At the training, we talked about the new mission schedule and just how to be better missionaries.

There is a lot work to be done while I'm here in Brid and I'm excited to bring more people into the gospel! On Sunday, I saw a member from York 1 and I gave a talk in Sacrament on the Holy Ghost. There are a lot of funny quirky members in this branch that I'll tell you all about next week. 

Cheers - Elder Holyoak

The Brid Boyz

Flamborough Lighthouse

Huge Flamborough Castle

Snow!

Dr. Who

Beach Boy @ Brid...

Lots and lots of new stuff here on my mission like: my new area Bridlington, teaching a man in a bar, the soda man and more!

Hello, hello from Bridlington! My first week in Brid has been brilliant so far. I'll just give you guys the rundown on what it's like here and then I'll talk about the missionary work. I am currently living in a 4 man flat with my new companion, Elder Wilkey, who is from Rexburg, Idaho. He's really into music and theater. The other two lads living with me are Elder Vickers from Bristle, the south of England and Elder Mills from a little town called Kuna in Idaho. So, I'm livin with 2 Idaho boys and a local. This last transfer had a lot of changes in the York Zone, including moving 3/4 of the Elders that were here in Bridlington. Elder Wilkey has only been in the area for 3 weeks so far, so it's practically been a white wash.

Bridlington is a medium sized city that's right next to the North Sea. It's a fairly large branch that's getting pretty close to becoming a ward. Their goal for this year is to get 6 new members and 16 re-activated members in order to become a ward. So yes, we've been working with a lot of less active members. There is a man that's friends with a member that we're teaching. And the member, Brother Bentley is a Californian that runs a bar! That's right, a Mormon runs a bar here in Bridlington. Haha. He's a great member and he openly shares with his costumers that he doesn't drink and that he's a member of the church. We taught his friend in the bar and we're giving him a church tour next week.

Here's a random experience that I thought I'd share with you guys. Elder Wilkey and I were knocking doors and I hear the song "Pinball Wizard" playing. It was man delivering soda to people's doors. Elder Wilkey asks him, "Are you delivering soda to people's doors?" And the man just laughed. "You guys deliver soda in England? You're like the soda man!" We then bought one from him and had a good chat with him. I guess that gives you a taste of Elder Wilkey's fun, awkward personality haha.

It's been a great week and a fresh new start to a new area. The funny thing is that I'm going back to York on Wednesday for interviews, so I might run into some members I know or Peña. Anyways you guys have a good one. Take cay ye sens! (Take care of yourself in Yorkshire)

-Elder Holyoak

North Sea beach panorama 

Ponies!

Beach fun, missionary style