Newcastle Emlyn, Wales - March 30, 2015

Hi there! So this week has been a good one, but exhausting!! We have been trying to work as hard as we can this week and have definitely seen the pay off. We are blessed with loads of new investigators so life is so good! haha :) Also does anyone remember Chris, the investigator Sister Gaffney and I had right at the beginning of my mission? Well, we ran into him and he said we could come by and teach him again! Wooo!! :)

So one of those new investigators is a total miracle! Her name is Pam Bray and she is way cool. So a long time ago we were looking through old potential investigators sheets and former investigators forms and her name stuck out to us. We called her and she said she was sick, but to come by sometime and see if she was in. We waited a while and eventually forgot about her (oops!). But Sister Francis and I were contacting a referral we received from a member and we felt impressed to knock the doors around the referral's house. So we were just going along talking to people and we knocked on this one lady's door. She immediately invited us in, which never happens so we thought it was pretty cool. We asked what her name was and she said "Pam, aren't you the ones that called me?" She remembered that 30 second phone call from months ago!! How cool is that?? This taught me a seriously valuable lesson-Never ever ever ever just give up on someone. It is so so so important that we give everyone the chance to know the Gospel, even if we think they don't want it or wouldn't appreciate it. We did the wrong thing for forgetting about her, but Heavenly Father stepped in and led us to her! Total miracles! Now I will definitely contact EVERYONE who says they could possibly, maybe, even have a hint of interest :)

Everything is going great over here in the England Birmingham Mission or the EBM (Earth's Best Mission) haha :) Love you all! :)

 

Newcastle Emlyn, Wales - March 23, 2015

Hello Everyone! :)

So this week has finally been sunny over in Wales! I didn't even wear a coat some days and I have been able to wear normal shoes instead of big, bulky, winter boots! What a miracle!

So this week we have been working with a lady named Takia a lot more. She is so elect! Hopefully she will keep progressing and be able to meet her baptismal date! I can't wait!

Our mission president has really stressed working hard and being bold with invitations this week so we have been absolutely knackered running everywhere and doing all we can. I guess the whole mission has a lot of lessons each week but people coming to church and being baptized has really taken a dip so we are really trying, as a mission, to get back on top of our goals.

Sister Francis is amazing as always. We have a great time together and she will kill all the huge spiders in our flat. I swear we are infested with them! And they are so big over here! So I am really grateful for her!

So I have decided that Rugby and Football need to be banned in Wales! Everyone just gets drunk at like noon on the days that there is a match! Its so frustrating! We have had 3 times in one day where we had some serious creepers trying to follow us! Oh well, its a good thing Sister Francis and I can be pretty bold with these people! :)

Oh so funny story, Sister Francis and I stopped this guy on the street to talk to him and things were going pretty well, he seemed pretty interested. Then his friend came over and started to scream at us for believing in the Gospel! He was swearing and ranting and raving! So Sister Francis and I just tried to kind of keep talking to the first guy, but then the guy who was yelling at us yelled at me specifically for not talking to him! I said, "I will talk to you, but I am going to tell you right now that I know God is real and I won't be convinced otherwise." That just started him off on a whole other tangent on how big of idiots we were for believing. Hahahahaha some people are just too funny! Like, who would even think of doing that?!? I'll tell you who-this big polish guy! HAHA :) we eventually got their names, David (The crazy one) and Slavik (Who is actually really cool and I don't know how, but we ended up getting a return appointment with him. He said he won't bring his friend hahaha).

Well team, I hope you have a great week full of miracles and loads of blessings! I know we will over here in the UK! :) Love you all! :)

Newcastle Emlyn, Wales - March 16, 2015

Hey Everyone!

So this week has been pretty good, lots of finding and we finally taught this girl named Takia. She is awesome, she has 3 little kids. The youngest is 6 months old and super super super cute. We are really excited about her.

I also got a new companion! Her name is Sister Francis. She is from Tanzania, Africa (no, she does not appreciate it when I sing songs from The Lion King to her, but I do it anyway). She is seriously one of the hardest working people I think I have ever met! She is hilarious though and I am really excited for the rest of this transfer with her!

So funny story for this week. Sister Francis and I every morning during exercise have competitions for who can do a hand stand since neither of us can do one. Its hard to say who is winning because both of us are terrible!

Oh and we had a weird experience! We were street contacting on the high street in Carmarthen. I was talking to this guy and out of the corner of my eye I could see this guy standing in front of a pub watching us. So the guy I was talking to leaves and I start to walk down the street with my companion. But the guy standing in front of the pub starts following us and talking to us. Then his friend came and before you know it there was 7 of them! They were all in the pub watching the Ireland vs. Wales rugby game and were all drunk! Haha so we gave them all Mormon.org cards :) But before we could leave one grabbed me and hugged me!!!!! aaaaah! it was scary haha :) So now I have been hugged by two drunk guys and a big, black Jehovah's Witness missionary since I have been out. This is not okay! Haha :)

I hope this week is amazing for all of you! Sounds like things are going pretty well back home. Keep pushing on Saints and Soldiers! You guys are the best! And remember, God is your loving Heavenly Father. He knows you. He knows exactly what you are feeling, thinking, desiring in this exact moment. I bear witness of God the Eternal Father, my Father and your Father, who gave us spiritual life. I testify that He is the Man of Holiness, that mercy and goodness, love and compassion are some of His significant characteristics. I witness that we show our love for Him through our choices and our obedience to His commandments. He is the source of truth anad light. Don't ever, ever forget it! :)

Well I better get going but I love you all! :)

Love,

Sister Rasmussen

Newcastle Emlyn, Wales - March 9, 2015

Hey there everyone! So this week has been up and down a little bit. Some huge miracles happening!

First of all this area hasn't been having coordination with the ward mission leader and hasn't been going to ward coordination for a really long time. They actually said missionaries weren't invited...kind of weird! But we went and talked to the bishop and a counsellor from the stake presidency and got both meetings this week! Yay! So we are really excited to coordinate with the ward more and see miracles happen!

So this week with Cyrus was very interesting. Everything was going really good then on Friday night she phoned us and told us she didn't want us to come by anymore. Then on Saturday morning she phoned and said she wanted to come to church as an official last thing she could do so she wasn't just dropping us with no goodbyes or anything. Then later on that night she called again and sounded really weird on the phone. She said she didn't want to come to church and please do not contact her anymore and just leave it at that. So we were confused but said ok and that was that. Then on Sunday while we were at church she phoned us and left a message saying she needed help, please call her asap and she sounded really odd again. So we phoned her house twice with no answer. We went by her house and there was no answer. Tried her mobile a couple times...again no answer. Her friend eventually called us on her house phone and said that Cyrus had gone to the hospital and now was in a mental institution. We were totally shocked! Cyrus eventually called us and wanted us to come see her so we went to see her in the place they are keeping her. She asked for a Book of Mormon because she had left hers at home. She wanted us to pray with her and she asked if we could arrange a blessing for her. She is just such a sweetie! She is doing well and will actually go home soon. We still don't know why she was there or what happened, but it was a crazy ride. Please pray for her.

This week I have learned a lot. In the space of about two days we had about 4 investigators drop us besides everything with Cyrus. Luckily the Lord has definitely been watching out for me and over all I can still honestly say this week has been pretty good. Haha missions are crazy rollercoasters some times :) I am looking forward to this coming week and all the miracles and blessings that Heavenly Father is waiting to give all of us! Love you all!

Newcastle Emlyn, Wales - March 2, 2015

hello, hello, hello!

how is everyone doing?? it is great over here in Wales. its super sunny today for the first time ever so that was a total shock! for p-day this week we are going over to one of my favourite members house to chill for the afternoon and play games with the little kids. their name is the Siddy's and they are just so cool!

so this week was a lot of teaching again. we have been working with less actives a lot this week and they are coming along really well. The one family is the Allen's. It is a mom and three boys 15,13, and 7. they are so nice! She says that she still reads the Book of Mormon with the youngest two which is so cool! and then we have been doing service for another lady with a little boy. painting their kitchen has been pretty fun.

Trainers calls for who will be training the new missionaries is today, so everyone hope that I don't get a call haha! Everyone over here keeps saying they think i'll train but I am not seeing it :) then transfers are a week away and it is almost guaranteed that Sister G. is leaving because she has been here so long. it'll be crazy to get a new companion!

well I love you all and have a great week!

love,

Sister Rasmussen

Newcastle Emlyn, Wales - February 23, 2015

Hey there everyone!

So this week has been really fantastic! We had exchanges and they were amazing!!! I went on exchange with Sister Lamb who is like the coolest missionary ever! We had so much fun together and basically decided that we HAVE to serve together haha :) She is from Syracuse, Utah and she is just way chill. Plus we work together pretty well too. We got 3 new investigators together in the matter of like 4 hours :) MIRACLES!

Things this week with Cyrus have been interesting. She was doing really well and we taught her a few times and she seemed really receptive and like she was picking things up really well. Then Friday night she called us and asked us not to come by the next day and said she was feeling a lot of pressure about the Word of Wisdom because it was really hard to keep and that she needed to sort things out in her head. We talked to her though and got to the point where we would go by but just chat and make smoothies with her so she could have those instead of coffee but not really teach her. Then late that night she texted us and told us not to come and not to contact her the whole weekend. Then Saturday morning her friend phoned us and told us she didn't want us to ever come back and that she was done taking the lessons. We were totally gutted about it since she was such a miracle and it really seemed like her time. Then later that day we received a phone call from Cyrus, herself, where she said since her friend told us not to come back that she had been sick to her stomach and knew it was the wrong thing to do. So we went over Sunday to talk to her. She told us she wants to keep taking the lessons and learning and that she really wants to believe what we believe and she thinks it is right. She then proceeded to tell us how she used to believe in a lot of scientology stuff and how she thinks that God and satan are two separate planets and how Jesus lived on the planet but then came to Earth like an alien. And when he died he was on this big mountain and a spaceship came and took him back to the planet called God. HAHAHA! We had no idea how to really respond to that! She said she wants to believe all that we say, but she just can't get all that science stuff out of her head. But the spirit was there and totally took care of the situation (to be honest I can't even remember what we said to her). Somehow reassured her and now she is an investigator again. So that has been a crazy few days with her haha!

But other than aliens and spaceships we have actually been teaching lots of people the gospel haha :) Our numbers for lessons taught this week broke the record for most lessons taught in the Newcastle Emlyn area ever so that was really exciting! Hopefully all those lessons can grow into baptismal commitments!! :)

We also had Zone Conference this week which is where four of the zones in our mission got together and President Rasmussen came and talked to us and gave us a lot of training. It was so good! That man is inspired! Hanging out with other missionaries is cool regardless, but then having an awesome message from President and his wife too just made it the best! We did this game where they would give you a quote from Preach My Gospel and you had to turn to find and turn to the page it was on. Guess who won????? That's right ladies and gents....ME! Haha, I don't know how because there was like 100 missionaries there :) The prize for winning was real, American A&W Root beer! I was so excited because in all the restaurants over here they usually don't sell root beer. But then guess what I did?? Left it at the church! I was sooo sooo sooo sad! Haha it was really fun though. 

So we also had Stake Conference which was really cool. Lots of missionaries were there and loads of people. We had three investigators come so that was super cool! They are all Chinese so it was kind of hard for them to understand all the speakers, but they still loved it and said they loved the feeling they got there. That is the joy of the Spirit! :)

Well this is officially the longest email I have ever sent sooo...I'm gonna go now! Love you all and don't ever hesitate to share the Gospel...I promise you'll regret keeping it to yourself :)

Love,

Sister Rasmussen

Newcastle Emlyn, Wales - February 9, 2015

so this week was way cool! we had some harder days at first but then this one day i stopped this mom and she was totally golden! i asked her "if there was a prophet on the earth today would you want to hear what he has to say?" and she was totally like "yeah, i really want to hear what he has to say for me and my family!" then she just like handed over all her contact info. and it was just totally awesome! she is so elect! 

then like just a couple hours later i stopped this other lady and she was like "hey, i know that badge! i really wanted to be a mormon" and me and my companion were like WHAT?? and she said "yeah i used to study with elders in england before i moved then i couldn't get in contact with missionaries here and that was a long time ago. but i have your book and i just always kept it because it seemed sacred to me. like i really wanted to get baptized and believed it was true!" at this point me and my companion are just standing there in shock and awe with our mouths hanging wide open! and then she was like "this is so funny because i wasn't even going to come up this street and something just told me i should!!!" i just wanted to cry i was so happy! What a miracle! Her name is Cyrus and we can not wait to go to her flat and teach her! yay! but i need to run, and i love you all!

Love, Sister Rasmussen