Missionary Letter #6 (November 8, 2010)

Well, first of all, i think i chose my mission plaque scripture before i forget. k i really like john 21:15. (So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs.)

so i have no idea what it's like brazil, but the people we've met here from brazil are always SO nice and SO friendly and not like mean and are always interested. uuuuuuuh, are you KIDDING me??? anyway. we also knocked on this lady's door this morning who was so excited to see and and was like, i'm christian! i'm so happy to see you! would you like to come in for tea! it's just so important for my sons to know that jesus atoned for them! all this stuff like that, but making it very clear she's very apart of her own church. but we're going to go on thursday because she said she'd read the book of mormon. it's so nice to talk to people like that. who care. so many people just don't even care, it's ridiculous.

  

okay so there are a ton of young single adults who are students at kent university, and like ALL of them are lit/creative writing students. gaaaaaaah it kills me! haha. i keep asking what they're studying. this one girl is studying the romantics so i was talking all about it to her and told her to watch bright star. and then i was like, is this allowed? ha. oh man.

  

we also went to these two sisters' house. a spinster and a divorcee. they are the best ever. oh man. one of them owns guinea pigs that are like her children. she showed us tricks where she'd put a carrot in her mouth, lay on the floor, and then the guinea pig would come get it! anyway, we practiced giving pass-along cards with them, and they were so hilarious. their house looked like it hadn't gotten anything new for like fifteen years. everything was vhs, and old movies like free willy, and then the posters they had in the room were like of horse heads and stuff. and they insist on showing every missionary that comes this video of their dad with a wig on just saying a load of nonsense and they think it's so funny. oh man, they're so good. loved going over there.

thanks so much for all of your emails and your prayers! i'm happy to be here even though sometimes it's hard not to think of all of the other things i'd rather be doing...hahaha. i'm starting to stop looking forward to any "me" time i can have. i'm not here to have "me" time. there's not really time for me to just escape into my brain and think about things that i wish i could be doing. instead i have to think about how i can get to know members better, how i can engage someone on the street, how i can serve my companions. anyway, obvious things, but hard to do and remember to do.

i love you all so much and thanks for your emails and prayers! it's been a good week.

love,
sister emma

Missionary Letter #5 (November 1, 2010)

so i've already contacted a few people in french! what the heck? so i've added five minutes of language study to my personal study every morning. we met someone last week from france and i was just frozen while my comps looked at me. didn't say anything. and then a few days ago, we met this girl from morocco, and i started speaking french to her and honestly when she was responding to me i was like, "is she speaking french?? i can't even tell because i'm understanding" and then i'd listen for the individual words and she was speaking french, and anyway. it was so awesome. and then we met another family from france the next day and i started my little street contact in french once we found out they were french, and i was putting sentences together more easily than i've ever been able to before. how cool is that?? it was so awesome.

 

we went to this couple's house who got baptised a few months ago and they're from like kuwait or something? anyway, they'd speak arabic to each other and i was so excited of course. why am i obsessed with jerusalem? i'm so annoying. anyway, by the end i said to them, "shucran!" which means thanks, and now when i see them i say "marhaba!" haha. the extent of my arabic vocabulary. so cool though.

last night we went tracting foreeeeeeever and it was pretty awkward because people thought we were trick or treaters. not quite. my trainers kept making fun of me because we had a good view of the cathedral and it looked so pretty with all of the mist around it and everything. ah, love that cathedral. 

most of the people we're teaching aren't english, they're immigrants. a few are, but those are rare. and they're boys. i wonder if that's a trend, like if elders teach more girls. seems like it would make sense, but anyway. oh yeah! we met this japanese man and he couldn't hardly speak any english and we just showed him a picture of christ and i said, " we, teach you? about christ? tomorrow?"  and then we met him the next night at the train station and he followed us to the church and showed him finding faith in christ and we're giving him a book of mormon in japanese tomorrow. we can hardly communicate, i honestly have no idea why he followed us. haha so hilarious! anyway, asians are the best because they lilke never flake on you. so awesome.

can't believe ducks are #1! that's so awesome! yaaaaaaaaay.

sister emma

Missionary Letter #4 (October 25, 2010)

CANTERBURY!!!! i was so excited. we got to the mission office, we had some orientation stuff for a while and then they brought us to this room where we had a couple people talk and we hadn't met our trainers yet and i'm just like freaking out. then they tell me and my companion-for-the-day to sit with two seats in between us, and then we each had a seat on the other side. click. i'm gonna be in a threesome! didn't know how i felt about that. but then we were singing called to serve, and on the second verse all of the sudden it was way way louder and we turn around and all of our trainers come walking in!! my trainers find me and hug me while we're singing and then we finish the song. i was just smiling like the biggest idiot for the next like three hours. especially when i was like, "where are we going???" and sister j told me canterbury! yaaaaaaaaay. so i live in canterbury now! as in the canterbury tales as in chaucer as in i see the cathedral everyday. i told her last night while we were tracting that it was the city set on a hill that can't be hid because it was all lit up!  i really really like both of my companions. this is sis j's last transfer. she's actually leaving a bit early to be home for thanksgiving, so not even a whole transfer left. she's not trunky at all and i've learned so much from her just this week. sis g is from hawaii and she's only been out two transfers. it's the best because we go out contacting and somehow i end up hardly stopping anyone because there's two of them...oops! i am trying to work on that though...but even when i do stop someone, i say a couple of things, ask a couple of questions, and then sis j comes in and makes things actually relevant and helps them understand why this is possibly something they might be interested in. haha! it's pretty funny. but anyway, i like do nothing but both my comps are so nice that even when i do the tiniest little thing, they're like telling me how great of a job i did. haha!

sis j asked me last night what my biggest surprise has been since i left the mtc. i guess it's that people actually do listen to us. not like a ton, but we meet a few people everyday who actually do care about this stuff, who actually have been searching and actually do want to know. it's so weird!

thank you thank you i love you so much! it's been a really good week. thank you for all of your prayers.

love you!

cheers!

sister emma

ps it's freeezing here. not even that rainy, just sooooo cold. okay, don't say anything cam and lauren. hahaha

Missionary Picture #1 (October 19, 2010)

I have a friend who served in the England London Mission and she sent me this picture last night she found on Facebook. Emma with her trainers! Wahoo! She's got to be the cutest dressed sister missionary ever. I was wearing Eddie Bauer and Lands End at the beginning of my mission. What a geek!

Missionary Letter #3 (October 18, 2010)

i have ten minutes to email because we're not sure if i'll be able to email tomorrow because we're going to our missions!! baaaaah! i'm going to my trainer!

one more tracting thing, sis c had to pee sooooo bad and we were just in a neighborhood. so we went to this little drugstore and there was no bathroom, and the store owner wouldn't let her use her bathroom in her home because then she'd have to close the store. haha sis c was sooooooo desperate and this little chinese girl came walking into the store so sis c asked if she lived nearby and if we could use her toilet!! haha! it was so hilarious. the cute little chinese girl was just like, uh, no...but sis c was so desperate she was willing to do anything. haha we ended up going across the street and using her toilet. her english wasn't very good, she was there for school (we went to lancaster) and so we talked to her for a little bit, gave her a book of mormon, and told her it would help her with anything she needed help with and gave her the church address. i don't think she really understood what was going on. we just kept handing her passalong cards and pamphlets and things. hahaha. woops! then sis f, a sister in my district, was like, "hey, bladders convert" and told us a bunch of stories like that. so awesome.

loooooooove,

sister cutie

Missionary Letter #2 (Oct 13, 2010)

oh gosh then we went contacting on friday in manchester. most stressful thing of my life. especially when they're like, talk to everyone, talk to every single person you see. so i'm like totally stressed out the whole time and i had to go up and start pretty much every conversation because sis c was really scared. i was like hey, i thought YOU were supposed to be the bold one. i guess one of us had been planning for reality and how scary it would be, and the other one had no idea how scary it was actually going to be. haha.

today we did a church history tour and saw where the first people were baptized and where the first missionaries came, and then we went to a tiny town that's where the painting above mom and dad's bed is. it's the cutest little town that this lord has made everyone preserve so there's no electricity. reminds me of the cotswolds. we'll have to go there when we come back. but a ton of people were baptized there and heber c kimball was talking to joseph smith about that place and joseph smith said that some ancient prophets were there and they blessed that land! how cool is that? it was so peaceful and nice, it did feel sacred. it was such a beautiful little town. everything stone and a little church and ivy growing on the houses and things. i was like, oh yeah, this is why i love england. wish it was possible to serve in places like that. probably not. 

it's been nice weather here, so during exercise we get to go outside and play football. yesterday i almost headed it! woo! i played defense like the whole time but then i started like actually running up for offense too and i kicked the ball into the district leader's crotch. uuuuuuh woops! haha! and then i ran round the track and there was a dead rabbit on the trail. pooooor peter rabbit :(

an area seventy came and talked to us and gave us a fireside on sunday. it was so good. and then afterward he came around and shook all of our hands and he said to me "you have a nice aura about you. families will love you." isn't that cute? so hopefully families will love me! gosh. i had to say the closing prayer for that too but then it was okay.

well! i'm starting to feel okay about being here! i leave the mtc on monday because there's some kind of conference for mission presidents. only a few more days here!

love you all!

sister Emma

Missionary Letter #1 (Oct 6, 2010)

Preface: Lauren here (Emma's favorite sister). I have hijacked her blog and added myself as a writer so that you may keep up with her mission. We don't have any pictures of her yet but when we get them, I will post them. And just as a little background, Emma entered the Provo MTC Wednesday October 29 (the same Wednesday as me, just five years later, I might add...), she was there for two days before learning her visa came through and was on a plane to England Friday October 1st. This is her first letter from England. Enjoy!

okay, so got here on saturday and was just toooootally wiped out. like i was walking around like a zombie because i was so dead. people kept asking me if i was okay, but i just knew that i'd have to sleep and then i'd be fine. a couple who works at the mtc here picked us up at the airport. we were pretty out of it by the time we were in london and before we went to manchester. 

there are 26 missionaries here right now. 11 sisters and 15 elders. apparently it's the biggest group of sisters they've every had, so that's kind of cool. there are people from all over the world here, two from the netherlands, a few english, a girl from pakistan who is one of my roommates, two beautiful swedes (of coooourse) and some others too. oh! one from italy and another from POLAND!!

we're going contacting in manchester on friday, so that's scary. i'm starting to freak out less though, so that's good. yesterday in class i was like, oh my gosh, i don't have to go to school. i don't have homework. i just get to study the scriptures and have gospel discussions and teach people that is so awesome!

i was looking at scriptures yesterday and jeremiah 16:16 talks about the fishers and hunters, so i was like, i think the fishers came 150 years ago. we're hunters who have to look in the mountains and search under the rocks. but our teachers tell us that we're a baptizing mission so we should think that we can baptize. anyway, i'm getting excited and not freaking out so much. it's good to be here. all of the sudden it's real and it's not so intense. just starting to be good and hard work and normal life.

i love you!

sister emma

Leave a comment if you want and I'll make sure Emma gets your love notes. And, if you're wondering why Emma would be so excited about someone being from Poland, it's because I served my mission there. Though I think the Pakistani sister is way more exciting.