There is this tall ships festival happening this weekend. Friday we watched one of them sail in to the docks. We are spending our p-day down there today, so there will be more pictures. Look for the new Alice in Wonderland 2 movie - part of that was filmed at the docks and there is a really cool old ship that a lot of movies were filmed on. Pirates of the Carribean was one of them.
So this has to be super short. Its a bank holiday and so all the public computers are not working. We are at the church using one computer. WE GOT IPADS - but are not allowed to use them yet until Salt Lake has seen that we have all done the course on safeguards. And with it being a holiday in the US, we probably won't have permission until tomorrow. SO - that's a bummer but, oh well.
This week was crazy. I was out of commission for a few days - my fever would not break. It was a low one but didn't go away. So we didn't get to do as much work as we would have liked but even with that, our numbers are staying the same. So that's good!! I'm excited for this week to see what we will be able to do when I'm going full force!! :) We Got iPads so that was fun. We had 2 district meetings this week. We visited Sai and Ofa, the Tongan and Fijian family we are working with. Their food is delicious!!! Oh best news ever!!! Jake got baptized finally!! Saturday we got to go back to Wylde Green and Sister Leiss was there and Sister Sorensen and so many people I love! After Jake got baptized, you could see there was a change in him. He told me after that he almost backed out! Saturday was awesome! I'll tell you about it tomorrow, if we are allowed to email, or next week. I have so many pictures to send so Ill try to get them to you today!! Love you all!!! Sister MacKay It is so good to hear from everyone!! There was so many emails in my inbox. I think it was the most since I have been on my mission!! I definitely felt loved haha.
So last monday I was on line and I emailed Alayna Een back and then she responded and we got to chat for a bit! It was so much fun! I just love getting to chat with her! I was telling Sister Melville that we first met in the mothers lounge when we were babies and we grew up together and we got our calls on the same day and then we left within a week of each other! Now we are serving close (er) to each other than some of my other friends. Both our misisons are getting ipads at the same time! I just love Alayna :) But this week- Monday- The elders came in from Evesham and we went shopping. Stores close at 5:30 here. My mind was blown. Still just use to 24/7 Smiths and 9-10 Target and all the others haha. Spoiled we are in Vegas! Tuesday- I woke up with a sore throat. (I've been sick once a transfer so far!) and at one point it got a bit bad so I took a nap part way through the day. We had a few lessons cancel and that was a tender mercy. We had dinner with Sue and Gary. Here's the story with them. My first district leader Elder Houghton served in this area almost a year ago. He went to reactivate Sue and ended up converting her husband Gary and they are the sweetest people ever and they take such good care of the missionaries!! Love them to pieces! Wednesday- We went on exchanges. Sister Picket from Las Vegas was my comp for the day. She went to Las Vegas High School, over by the temple. We had a great time. Learned a lot from her! We found a few families and were so happy with all that we were able to do! We had a great lesson with Kondwani the RC that we are working with. He has expressed some desire to serve a mission so we started some misison prep with him. It was great. The Spirit was totally there. Oh, but we met with Andrew and it turns out that he has a problem with remembering things with his previous heavy drinking. So with that and a few other things happening this past week it doesn't look like we will get him baptized by this weekend. It will take a bit longer. But that's okay. Thursday- We had zone meeting. I played the piano. It was a blast! It went long - longest zone meeting ever. We are part of the smallest zone in the mission but we have close relationships with those in our zone!! We then went by our 94 year old investigator. She is still alive!!! We were worried haha, but the dog was locked in another room so I didn't almost puke again!! Tender mercy :) We then visited our LA family Sai and Olpha. They had 3 daughters. So it was so cool! Sai (he) is from Fiji. Olpha is from Tonga (pretty sure she went to the same school that Grandma taught English at when she was on her mission). She is also cousins with Elder Tukuafu. After getting to know them and telling her about Grandma, Curtiss, knowing her cousin and being comps with Sister Lesuma in the mtc, you could really tell they were starting to trust us. She wasn't born into the church but she lived with her aunt and uncle who were members. Then she became a member and ended up converting all of her family. All of her siblings have served missions now except her. A few things happend and she stopped coming to church. Its been 6 years since they have been back. They have such a strong desire to come back but you know when you ditch class once, it then gets so much easier to keep ditching.. same with them. But they love us and we love them. I might put a bit more weight back on since they are planning to feed us all the time now haha. But I'm excited. I love Polonesian food!! They drove us home and as we were talking it turns out that the elder that baptized Sai is one from Sister Melville's stake back home. He is older, but by the time we got home there was such a strong feeling that we were supposed to be here in this area together to help this family. It was one of the coolest feelings ever. It made me so happy I almost cried!! Oh, we also cleaned out the junk food cabinet and gave it all to the elders haha. Friday- I had a bad fever and Sister Rasmussen said I needed to sleep. We went to lunch with our investigator Natasha at a really cute cafe called the Comfy Pew right next to the Cathedral. It was so good. Then we went home and I slept. ALL DAY. It felt so good. Saturday- We had quite a few lessons and then Stake Conference. It was a busy day - A good day. And we got to see all the missionaries in the stake! Best part! Sunday- We had stake conference and this is when most of the things with Andrew came up. Bishop could see that Andrew wasn't ready. I had felt a bit like we were rushing things. I was trying to see how things were going, but after church I looked like a right idiot to Bishop until I told him we were not going to let him get baptized until he really was ready. I needed to sleep so I went to bed early again... I have slept alot this week! Sorry this is so long! It was an interesting week. Good, but interesting. I love it all!! Makes for good memories! Love you all!! Sister Ashley MacKay It was a blast to see you all yesterday!! I do have to say I love my family!! That is definitely a huge blessing I have seen in the past month!! I already knew it before but it was just reiterated over and over again! But this past week....... Tuesday- We got to email since Monday was a bank holiday. We are so excited for when we get ipads so that we won't have to worry if the library is open or not, because they close a lot on Mondays here for random holidays. After we finished emailing, we were waiting for a lesson. He didn't show up, but we got a voice mail from President saying that Elder Holland is coming to speak to the mission on June 11th!!!! We were so excited!! He is only going to be in the country for 2 hours and we are so blessed to get to hear from him and then we will have a mission wide conference that will be so much fun the rest of the day!! SO... You can say that we are all so excited for June!!!! Then we had a lesson with Billi and her husband Phil and it was interesting and good. They said that if they get the answer that this is true that they will get baptized. You could tell the Spirit was there! Then we had a lesson with Andy! Andy is actually in Texas at the moment visiting his fiance. But we felt it was important to teach the Law of Chastity. His finace is a member but just so we can say we have taught it. It was funny. We had to bring a member with us, Sue, and she was great! She teased him here and there and Andy is a sweet guy but sometimes clueless. Some background so you get the story.... His finace told him briefly about garments so he didn't freak out when they got married and so to make her feel better about wearing "unattractive white underwear" he bought some white underpants online and sent her a picture of what he bought. She responded to that text while we were there and right after we taught him about pornography he asked us if we would like to see his pants (thats British for underpants) and we all laughed and said no. We were dying! Hopefully you get the humor haha. Wednesday was interesting. We actually had a rough day. FACT! (thats for you Rachel, Dwight from Dundermifflen) Weather makes all the difference in missionary work here in England. When it is a sunny or a nice day, you can get so many potentials, but when it is dark and gloomy you have to fight to talk to anyone. That was what Wednesday was. And then we went to Coordination after being stood up by a potential and we got to hear that the elders have 8 people on a date...... We were a bit moody at that point. But I got to play the piano and get some stress out! I love being able to play the piano. Thanks Mom and thank Tori!! The elders came and sang with Sister Melville and we had "District Bonding time" with 1/3 of the district missing haha but it was okay and helped us pick up our mood a bit. This day "came to pass" (mom... that one is for you haha). Thursday- District meeting was canceled and so we decided to do some work for a lady that can't do house work for herself, but is really picky so she keeps sacking her cleaners and calls to see if we can come hahaha. But it was a nice break while it was raining outside and then when we left it was sunny for the rest of the day! We had 3 lessons and got 2 new investigators and one of them was Andrew that I was telling you about yesterday while skyping. He set a date for the 23rd of this month and we are excited. He is funny. We had a dinner appointment at a member's house and they told us to our face that they do not like sisters and that they prefer having elders over....... They were very blunt and a bit rude in their humor. And we tried hard to make a good impression on them but when we said hi to them at church on Sunday, they were indifferent to us...... That was a fail - a major fail. We don't mind if we don't get invited over to their place again haha. Friday we did some weekly planning in the morning and then went to teach Andrew. He feels very strong that his life calling now is to be a missionary. He asked if he could come out with us on Saturday.... We said we would be happy to teach him again and that he could come with us to church on Sunday but that he needs to be baptized first before he can be a missionary. It was funny. We had 5 lessons planned and only got to teach 3. One of them was with the lady that loves Elvis (can't remember if I told you about her or not). At first we were going to teach Sabbath day, then it got turned into personal prayer. But, then when we asked her what makes her happy she said if her body could handle smoking more, that would make her happy. Also, having a guy to pass the time with....... that was awkward...... So we taught the Word of Wisdom and next time we are going to teach the law of chastity hahahaha. Saturday- oh, Saturday was interesting....... So we have a recent convert that we work with. We only meet with him once a week and do scripture study with him. Sister Melville said that he has never been this friendly with sisters before except when he liked another sister, the one that baptized him. We met with him and he said he was going to pay for our lunch. We didn't realize anything at the moment, but, as we walked with him to his work after lunch, he wanted us to come meet his dogs... he just knows that we will love his dogs. And then he wanted us to come to his university to help him with his project. We needed to get out and work! When we said no to all of that he said, he wanted to come out with us. We said pretty bluntly (Sister Melville and I are both blunt) "Go home, Kondwani!" It was a bit irritating. AND, we kept getting texts from him throughout the day about random things. and great ideas he had - like all three of us wearing glasses just like Sister Mackay....... I was getting really fed up with it all. Ferocious Ashley is still inside me... don't worry mom haha. Sunday- We picked up Andrew and walked to church. Sent him in with the elders to priesthood while I prepared my talk. Rachel Maughn had been having a rough morning so we went out to her car and talked to her while I worked even more on my talk haha.. Sunday school was all my talk again and then Sacrament meeting I gave the talk. We walked Andrew home and then grabbed a snack. Then they had us over for the night and we got to play Phase 10 with them. Sorry about skype and how crazy it was. They are a fun family. Sister Melville had a hard time yesterday. Mothers day is hard for her, so I kept quiet and listened when she was ready. It was a good week. I have learned a lot and I guess all I can say is that I will never regret coming on a mission. I have never been happier and I know this is helping me become who I really am! I have never felt more like myself then I have on the mission! Thanks for all the prayers and the support everyone!! Love you all!! Sister Ashley MacKay Mom, To answer your questions, Sister Melville is from Aberdeen Scotland. Resto cups is where we use cups as a physical demonstration of why prophets and priesthood are important and how we have Christ's church on the earth once more, exactly how he set it up before. Sounds like this week was a busy and fun one! Monday night we had a meeting and dinner with Bishop and his wife. They are from South Africa and are such a lovely pair! Tuesday was interesting. We went by that investigator that has the sick dog and I really almost lost it. There was such a strong prayer going in my heart that I would not puke and let me testify to you all.... Prayers ARE answered! haha. We had a dinner appointment that night with a fun family and then a teaching appointment with our investigator Andy. We brought a member with us becuase we thought his daughter was not going to be there but she ended up coming and the member almost sent the daughter running. Let me please... PLEASE ask all of you. If you go teaching with the missionaries. Please do not share random spiritual experiences and press commitments on the investigator. That is the missionary's job and you WILL freak out an investigator that is on the fence about it all. Thankfully we were able to smooth it all out later in the week but it scared us! We had a sister stay the night in our flat since the coach was coming to our area to pick everyone up to go to the meeting in Birmingham. Wednesday we had to get up early and get ready for the meeting. None of us knew what to expect. We caught the coach into Birmingham. Our district leader and his comp wanted us to save them some seats and let me tell you - that coach ride was the best! It was so much fun seeing all those missionaries and catching up with them all! And, yeah, I loved it. But then we got to Harbone (chapel where the meeting was held) and there was so much joy and happiness seeing allllll those missionaries in one building... 250 - that's a lot. But there was such a spirit there! We had the head of the missionary department, Elder Allen and his wife, and a member of the 70, Elder Dykes and his wife, there. It was such an amazing meeting. It was all about preparing us for digital devices and how we are still to be Preach My Gospel missionaries. They were very blunt about pornography and even put a curse upon anyone that would dare to break the security system they have in place. I got to chat with Elder Allen and his wife during the snack break and they are just lovely! So cute and they were matching! It was fun but a long day! I got to see so many missionaries and realized how many we really knew just from serving in Wylde Green and it's funny. I always assume that no one notices me, but really so many know me from my last area! President sent us running out the door to catch the coach back, so I wasn't able to grab any pictures.... Sorry. Thursday we had district meeting and the elders in Evesham (District leader & comp) made us chinese food for lunch. It was a blast. Later that day we went by a referral from a member in another ward and it is this cute lady named Billie and her 10 month old son named Jacob. She asked for missionaries so that when her son gets older she can give him an educated decision on which church to join. So we got to know her and taught the plan of salvation and there were tears at the end! The spirit was so there! It was amazing. We had been planning the following Sunday (this past Sunday) to fast for a family to teach and we told our DL and he told us to look for a girl with blond hair and a guy with a green shirt. Billie was wearing green and was blonde... close enough! We were so excited. We are going to teach them again tonight! Friday- Weekly planning and lessons. Saturday- We taught Andy the Word of Wisdom and he already lives it and accepted it right then and there. Sunday- It was raining but it was a blast! Monday- Most things were closed so we did some shopping. I got a new shirt and skirt, really cheap. Then it was food shopping and then we talked on the phone with our DL and his comp since they couldn't come to Gloucester to hang out with our two teams. Then the Zone leaders ended up calling us and asking us if we wanted to play some card games with them. We felt really popular at that point haha. Got to go, but here is a pic of Sis Melville and I, the other day on the way to Billie's. I think I look great in it! haha Love you all! Sister Ashley MacKay |
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April 2016
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