December 12th, 2011 {wearing a scarf makes me look more chilsed}

dear my home town people,

let me tell you a little bit about this little piece of england we like to refer to as the epsom district. it's pretty much as stereotypical england as you can get. the sky basically can never decide if its cloudy, sunny, rainy, or even there. we walk to appointments alongside roads through green pastures and groves that wend through knolls and shires. the main problem we face with investigators is that everyone seems to really like tea. and on top of all that i rode in a double decker bus! so ya i'm definitely in that place that they said i was going to be at.  so in the actually mission related news i have an incredible story. after i e-mailed last we went and met with the blind couple (david and marie) and had a brief teach with them then we went knocking. i was so excited, i was finally going to do what you always seem to picture when you imagine missionaries working. so our first street was an area that the previous missionaries had found a potential so we decided to knock that street to see if any other people would be interested. so get this, the first house we knocked, on the first street we went down, on my first time ever knocking, on my first full day in the mission field and the lady, whose name was kim, was interested! she was super exited to meet with us and set up an appointment for the next day. as we were walking away i turned to elder peach and said that i wasn't expecting success so early and he said he hasn't knocked on an interested house in weeks. we continued down the street we found two more potentials and one more return appointment. then the real miracle happened when we went back for the return appointment. we decided to teach kim about the gospel of Christ because on the doorstep she mentioned that she didn't see the need for baptism but that she was a firm believer in Christ. . . . ya it didn't really make much sense to us either so we decided to start out by teaching her why baptism is an important part of following christ. we had some brief worries near the beginning of the lesson when she told us that she didn't understand the book of mormon. we asked her what she didn't understand and she replied i don't get the part about america. we were puzled so we questioned further and she replied that she basically considers america to represent the devil so she doesn't understand why we have scripture from there. well. . . . .  it's a good thing that elder peach knew how to handle that situation because i was much without clue (finnish that scentance in a snubby british accent just for fun). then after we cleared up that situation the lesson went amazing, by the end of it she and her ten year old son(who is named lewis incidentally) not only understood baptism but accepted the commitment to be baptized!!!!!! my first ever knock in the mission field is going to be baptized! now all we have to do is manage to get her through the rest of the lessons without messing anything up hugely. as we walked away from her house me and elder peach were completely silent for about ten yards and then we basically freaked out. jumping, yelling, whooping (not sure what that even means), might i even say the whole of the shebang. we were so excited that we couldn't stop laughing for the next ten or so minutes. there will probably be quite a few english folks telling a story about the two crazy americans cackling down the lane.

k this all i have time for today so please address all letters and other shenenegains you feel like sending to a very grateful elder jarman to



Elder Jarman

6 Firle Court
Epsom, Surrey
KT17 4DD
England



and i can't wait to hear from you all and to tell you more about the english way of life

with love

Elder Michael Jarman



ps. i'm going to be able to skype for christmas so i'll get back to you with the de