first chippy, exchanges, and a new investigator!

This week was so good! We were able to find a new investigator to teach which was awesome. He's 9 years old and his mum used to be in the church but has asked for her name to be removed. But she wants her son to learn and to get baptised. We've had two really good lessons with him already and the spirit was so strong in the one we had yesterday.  His mum was talking about her memories of going to the temple and of having family home evening with her kids and it was amazing to see the difference in her face as she talked about the gospel.  You could physically see a light in her eyes when she talked about how beautiful the temple was and how she used to teach Primary and take the kids on a walk to the temple.  We're going to have a family home evening with her and her family next week which I'm really excited for!

We also had exchanges this week which was a lot of fun.  I actually went back to Irvine and was with Sister Ryan, one of the sister training leaders over the Paisley and Glasgow zones.  Then her companion, Sister Passey, went to East Kilbride with Sister Ricks.  It was fun going back to Irvine and bumping in to people on the streets than I know. Sister Ryan has been out about 13 months so she's experienced and I learned a lot from her.  We talked to a lot of people on the street and even got some potential investigators! She also took me to get my first chippy (fish n chips) from a take out restaurant.  So good.

Went to my first district meeting last Tuesday which was really good.  Every Tuesday we take a train in to Glasgow and then our whole zone meets at a church where we then break up in to our separate districts.  Our district leader is Elder Parsons and his companion is Elder Lewis (who was in my MTC district).  They are in the Airdrie ward. Then there is Elder Thompson and Elder Phippen and Sister Hulet and Sister Watt who serve in the Motherwell ward.  Glasgow is so cool except really easy to get lost in as we found out last Tuesday when we tried to find the train station after District Meeting.  We were walking around for a long time but on the bright side, being lost was a good excuse to talk to people!

The weather has been crazy this past week! Sunny one minute, pouring rain the next.  I've heard that's common Scottish weather.  We were walking home from church yesterday and it was nice and sunny.  Then the clouds came in and it started to rain.  I have never seen so much rain coming down at once! All my clothes were completely soaked and dripping withing seconds.  Then before we got home, the sun came out and it was warm again.  Ach aye I don't know if I'll ever get used to the weather changes here haha. Funny story: we went out of our flat one morning and saw that it was pouring rain so we went back in to grab our umbrellas.  When we got back outside again it had started raining.  Well at least the weather isn't ever boring here! I've learned the importance of waterproofing everything.

Church yesterday was good but also kind of nerve wracking because I had to give a talk (on fasting) and then do a musical number in Relief Society.  The musical number was fine but the talk was pretty scary because I hadn't had much time to prepare for it.  And one of the speakers had called in sick at the last minute so they asked me to speak for longer if I could.   So I kind of felt like I was rambling the whole time.  Oh well, at least it's good practice for the rest of my mission, being put on the spot! Also, our investigator came to sacrament meeting which was awesome! And plus, one of the less-actives we've been teaching was reactivated yesterday.  He was baptised 3 years ago from yesterday.  He told us how he found the church and it was really cool.  The sister missionaries just went up to him on the bus and invited him to church and then he kept coming! It made me motivated to talk to more people on the bus even though those can be sometimes awkward situtations.

All in all, a great week! Miss you and love you all!

Sister Jackson

P.S. They have these really weird bugs here that our flat has been "infested" with lately.  Not really, but we've seen a lot of them.  They're called Jenny long-legs and they're like daddy long-legs except they have wings and fly. 

My new address is:

19 Falkland Place

West Mains

East Kilbride

G74 1JQ

United Kingdom 

 Knickerbocker Glory

At the beach

July 15

It's been crazy nice weather this past week! It hasn't rained once and it's been warm (well, warm for Scotland).  It's funny when we'll ask someone how they're doing and they'll say, "Oh, it's roasting!" and it will only be like 19 degrees and cloudy.  People are definitely used to the cold around here. 

 Last week was a lot of fun! For P-day we went and played football on the beach.  We even had a former investigator join us.  It felt so good to be active and running around.  We all got super sunburnt though because for some reason no one thinks to wear sunscreen in Scotland (probably because you usually don't need to).  The beach was pretty packed because all the schools just got out for summer holiday but it was still really fun!

 Oh, and me and Sister Birch had our first knickerbocker glory this week, which is also a tradition here.  Think Harry Potter book 2 (?) when Harry goes with the Dursley's to the zoo and they get ice cream.  Dudley gets a knickerbocker glory and then gets scared by the snake so Harry gets to finish it.  Anyway, that's what I first thought of when I heard the name.  But I thought it would be this big thing of ice cream, but actually there's very little ice cream in it.  At least the one we had.  It was ice cream, jelly (jell-o in the states), digestive biscuits bits (kind of like cookies, but REALLY good), sprinkles, whipped cream, and a bunch of different colored sauces.  It was really colorful and almost didn't look real.  But it was so good.

 Me and Sister Passey were able to play a musical number in church this Sunday which was a lot of fun.  The mission president was able to borrow a violin from someone in Edinburgh and bring it down so Sister Passey played the violin and I played my viola.  We played "I Need Thee Every Hour" with some improv in it.  It turned out really well I thought and it was funny because after we were done you could hear an audible gasp from the congregation.  And someone started to clap which was funny.  But I was so grateful for that opportunity to play.  Actually I was wondering if I would even be able to because right after I got here the pegs on my viola expanded so they were completely stuck and I couldn't tune at all.  I think it happened because of the change in climate/humidity and elevation. I was really worried but we were able to take it to a music shop here in town and they fixed it for free.  I was so grateful for that! 

 We are teaching this sweet old lady who is so hilarious and fun to teach.  She is in her 80's.  She has a lot of health problems and she lives alone but she is so kind and is my favorite person to teach.  When we taught her the Gospel of Jesus Christ yesterday we laid out pieces of paper with all the steps on it.  We had one that said "You" and one that said "Heaven" and laid them on the floor and talked about what steps we need to take in order to get from one to the other.  We asked her what she thought about how we can get from here to heaven.  She said "well you could try to swim but I don't know if that would work too well." She says things like this all the time out of nowhere and it's so funny but I love teaching her because she is so sweet and it's easy to have the spirit in the lessons. 

 That's it for this week, love you and miss you all!

Sister Jackson

July 8

Hiya!

This week has been great! In large part because of the weather. We're in a heat wave right now as they call it. It should get up to 28 degrees this week (which is really hot for Scotland) and be sunny for the next 10 days! So that's awesome.

It amazes me every day how much Scottish people can talk haha. We stopped a man the other day on the street and he was super nice but he was blethering to us for over an hour! I love talking to people here but sometimes I wonder how they breathe with talking that much nonstop:)

For the Fourth of July we had a barbecue (indoor) and we ate American food which was awesome! We had beef burgers, potato salad, and apple pie. And we've been singing the patriotic hymns this week in our companionship study.

We got a new district this week since 3 of the elders in it went home. We now have 5 sisters and 2 elders in our district. But it's a lot of fun and everyone gets along great!

One miracle this past week. We were talking to people on the street and as we were walking towards this man on the street I felt like I should talk to him. I almost didn't but I'm really glad I did because we found out his brother has been meeting with the elders in our district. When we talked to him about the Book of Mormon he actually said, "oh my brother has one of those. He won't let me see it because he's always reading it but I'd like to have one." It was awesome! He gave us his address for us to come by sometime this week.

Another miracle: An investigator accepted a date to be baptised! She's been meeting with missionaries for years but she finally agreed to a baptismal date on August 4th. This was a testimony builder to me that we can't give up on people and we have to be persistent because you never know what can happen! We had done a zone fast this Sunday that every companionship would have an investigator with a baptismal date going in to August and it was a miracle to see this happen for us so quickly.

We took the train to Ayr yesterday for the mission president broadcast and it made me laugh when I looked out the window and saw a bunch of steeples. It reminded me of seeing all the steeples back home of all the church buildings in Utah. Except the ones we saw were castles. But it still made my day:)

Everything is going great and the work is really progressing here!

Sister Jackson

 A castle in Irvine that was built in 1297

 A building that used to be the school house that Edgar Allen Poe went to as a lad

 They have these little statues all over in Irvine.  It's the symbol of Irvine--a lion holding two sceptors in its hand

 Funny statue I found

 

July 1

This past Wednesday we were able to go on a historical tour of Irvine and that was really neat! We saw the school that Edgar Allan Poe went to and we saw some old castles and buildings that were built in the 1500s or earlier.  It was crazy! Also that day we tried an authentic Scottish food that is common for the locals to eat.  They're called bridies and they're kind of like mince pies except it's ground beef instead of lamb.  It's onions and ground beef and a sauce of some sort in a pastry.  It was SO good.

We had an interesting experience a few days ago.  We were leaving an investigator's house and this lady walking her dog saw us and stopped us.  We didn't even say anything before she proceeded to tell us her life story and her experiences with religion.  She told us that she had a really good friend who was a member of our church.  After talking for about 15 minutes we managed to talk with her a little and Sister Birch asked her why she had stopped us.  She thought for a moment and said, "I thought you could answer my questions." We quickly asked her if we could talk with her and help answer her questions but then she told us quickly that she wasn't interested and walked off soon after that.  It was kind of sad and all I wanted to do was to be able to talk with her and help her but she wouldn't let us.  Learning to accept that other people have agency has been a lesson that I've learned a lot this week.  For instance, we had 8 specific people tell us that they were planning on coming to church yesterday.  None of them showed up.  At first I was really disappointed but then it made me think more about agency and about how Heavenly Father feels when all of us make promises or commitments to Him and then don't keep them.  It was pretty humbling for me to think about.  I am so grateful that we have the ability to choose and especially choose to follow Jesus Christ.  Because that's how we really learn how to trust in Him and that's when our faith grows the most. 

Yesterday, all the missionaries in the ward and the ward mission leader gave the lesson the last hour.  It was a combined relief society and priesthood class.  We talked about how the ward and the missionaries need to work together in order for the work to really progress.  It was really neat as we discussed all the many ways that everyone can do missionary work.  It made me think about how missionary work was so hard for me to do (or so I thought) before my mission but that it doesn't have to be! Even doing something like inviting someone who is less-active over to your house for games and a spiritual movie can bring that person back to church, but beyond that, help them gain greater friendships with people in the church and just help them feel better. You never know the impact you can have on people by reaching out to someone and being an example of Christ.

Hope ye's are doing well!

Sister Caryn Jackson