is currently alive) things are going great in the land of epsom. the lord
has blessed me and elder peach so much in this last week. it started out
kind of hard because after we had to drop david and marie we were left with
no investigator teaching pool so we sat down for weekly planning and spent
all our time planning for how we were going to find some more.
this entire week we have seen miracle after miracle bringing people into
our lives as we seek them. as we worked hard throughout the week doing any
sort of finding activity that we could we would often have hour upon hour
without success only to find someone who had been obviously prepared right
before it was time for us to go back to our flat. i have gained a strong
testimony in the power of doing all you can do and then relying on the lord
for the rest. There is no experience (that i have yet experienced) more
humbling than serving the lord. you realize very quickly that you are
absolutely nothing without his help and his guidance and without the power
of the atonement to lift us and to strengthen us in times of need, this work
would be impossible. i've also learned to trust my companion because it
seems that every idea he has and every random notion he has of where we
should go or what we should teach is divinely inspired. one such instance
was the cause of how we found the white family. we were working in the area
around our flat, which we actually don't do that often, just knocking and
looking for different former investigators from the area when elder peach
decided that we should start doing less active work instead. we pulled out
the map and found the closest such less active family dom and becky white
who happened to only be about two streets over from us. so we went over to
their house and knocked on the door and a twenty something guy answered with
the traditional british "yeallright". we asked him if he was dom and he told
us that he was actually bobby and dom was his father. he let us in to his
living room where becky was sitting and them dom came downstairs to join us.
and right from the get go bobby started firing questions at us, questions
that you could make by taking all the headings of preach my gospel and
inserting the occasional why or what. the family explained to us that they
were baptized 22 years ago and that bobby never got baptized because he was
only 8 years old at the time. they told us that they had fallen away from
the church because dom started playing in a band and the only gigs they
could get were on the weekends. then becky started to tell us that the times
she was active in the church were the happiest in her life. she started
crying and told us that she still believed and that she never stopped. she
pointed behind us and we turned around to see she still had her book of
mormon on the windowsill. she told us that she saw us walking up towards her
house and knew immediately that it was the church and then her and dom
explained that we, meaning the missionaries, always would randomly show up
at their door right when they were going through a hard time or they
desperately needed help with something. there is no doubt in my mind that
elder peach was led to that house at that precise time to help this family
in need by the spirit. they needed help and the lord guided us there to be
that help, the best part was that elder peach was just as amazed as i was at
what had happened. the next day we went by their house again unannounced
because we had somehow forgotten to get their number the first time we went.
when we knocked on the door bobby opened it up and with surprise asked us
how we did it. me and elder peach just looked at each other wondering, how
did we do what?. he explained that him and dom had just barely been talking
about church and how they wished they had our number so they could call us.
if anyone wants to even attempt to tell me this isn't the lords work, you're
out of luck. i love being here i love england and i've even grow to love
crumpets (no seriously they're pretty much amazing and i really don't know
why you can't find them in the states).
the lord loves us all and wants to guide us and help us throughout any
challenge we face and even throughout our day to day interactions with his
children. all we need to do is ask for help, fully intending to act on the
impressions you receive, and the lord will guide you and bless you in ways
that we can't even begin to comprehend.
as always i love you all and can't wait to hear from each of you about how
life in good ol' b-town is going on.
with love
Elder Jarman
Ps. did i mention i LOVE IT HERE!!!!!!
pps. also i'm not sure if i mentioned I LOVE IT HERE!!!!!!
ppps. oh um and also if someone would care to inform me where nick got
called on his mission to that would be pretty fantastic.
pppps. I LOVE IT HERE!!!!!!!!
so this batch includes a picture of me on a bus, a picture of my first
district, and two pictures of me with my new companion elder day, one of
which was done in epic setting with even more epic lighting.
enjoy!
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