January 4th, 2012 {why running around half naked in the snow at twelve o one in the morning is not a good idea on your mission}

dear THE WORLD!!!!!!!,

let me tell you a little bit about holidays on missions. they are not at all like holidays for people that aren't on missions. instead of being like this fun thing that we do where we feast on cheese and wine imitation drinks and ring silver bells with angels that we hear on high, it’s more like an annoying occurrence that makes it harder to teach. it’s okay though because now the holidays are over we don't have random (okay i know there not random but they kinda stick out in weird places if you think about it. . . . ish) days where we’re not allowed to preach due to the fact that people get are less likely to listen to you when you knock on their door in the middle of a party and start crying repentance unto their souls. like it said in my last letter it was just really really weird to have days where we didn't really have opportunities to teach as much.

anyways on new year’s we were able to do some teaching in the morning and we found some good potential investigators and then we were able to teach david and marie again but then we had to go back to our flat early due to the rampant groups of people celebrating in streets. needless to say celebrating the new year is a little bit different when you’re on a mission, for example this was the first year in a lot of years where i was not able to begin a new year by freeze drying my skin to the sound of pots and pans being crashed behind my back (i just realized that that makes our standard new year tradition seem kind of . . . violent).

so now that i'm done talking about things that don't actually matter let me tell you a little bit about the work that we've been doing in the area.

i want to share with you guys the story of david leonard our 80% blind investigator. he had a incredibly difficult childhood where he used to be into all sorts of illegal carousing and drug taking and at one point he even had to live off of money that he made doing nighttime street fights. he was incredibly bright though and at one point was even something like the third most recognized student in the uk. when he was about twenty one he got into a life threatening accident and was badly injured, the doctors told him that, to keep his life, he would have to undergo a radical surgery that had the possibility of leaving him both blind and deaf. he accepted the surgery and two days later he "woke up", if you can call it that, to find that he had no sense of sight, sound, smell, or taste and that the only tactile sensation he had was the two fingers on his right hand. in his own words, everything else was pure pain. he lived like this for over a week, where he couldn't do or feel nearly anything and he had next to no sensation of the world around him. and he told us that he never, not once felt alone. before his accident he didn't have any faith in his life he knew what christians believed but he never made any sort of step to find it for himself but when he had absolutely nowhere to turn and no way to do anything to better his situation he had help. he told us that he felt someone there with him through this entire ordeal. he felt someone there who was constantly strengthening him and comforting him. since he was able to recover most of his senses he has since strived to draw closer to god and to our savior jesus christ. he's told us that he is grateful beyond words for his accident. he completely lost the life he had before and even lost most of the functions of his body but because of his accident he was able to find the gospel in his life, and he also tells us that he's grateful because if he hadn't become disabled he would have never met his wife. david is such an example to me of what it means to be truly humble. he understands, more than i could ever hope to, the power of the atonement and the effect that it can have in our personal lives. he wants so much to be able to be part of the church and if he could just overcome his need for coffee there would be nothing that could stop him from doing so. i don't know if i've explained this before so i'm just going to do it anyways. david, because of his medical issues needs to take as many as fifteen different prescription medicines. these medications knock him out quite literally. and since marie will not tolerate david being out of it while she is in the house with him, he has to drink copious amounts of coffee to stay awake for her. he tells us that he wishes that he had never tasted the stuff and he honestly doesn't want to drink it but he does anyways because he loves his wife and will do anything to make her happy. but despite all this he never loses sight of what the atonement means to him. i know that this church is true, i know what it can do for people, i have seen what a greater understanding of the power of the atonement can do for someone. i can tell you all that there is no greater source of strength for any trial that we will face in this life than that that we gain from the sacrifice of our loving brother and savior jesus christ.

i'm here because i love him and i will do what he has commanded us to do in return for his love, as he told peter, if we love him we must feed his sheep.

i love you all and love to hear from each of you

with love

elder michael jarman

(:

December 28th, 2011 {the figgy pudding is a lie!!!!}

Dear recipients of this message,

Figgy pudding does not exist and i am entirely convinced that it's existence in song is entirely given to us for the purpose of distracting us from the holiday treats we could and should be enjoying. namely chocolate mousse, and trifle, and (if you are brave of tongue and stout of stomach) english christmas pudding. has anyone ever had figgy pudding? no? i didn't think so! and since none of my imaginary responders responded i must conclude indefinably and with absolute finality that the figgy pudding is a lie!

anyways, moving on from desert related lies i think i have a few experiences to share about my time here in england over the christmas season. On christmas we woke up early and went to a breakfast appointment with a member. after that we went to an hour of church where we sang a lot of christmas songs with some great spiritual messages mixed in between. after church we went to our ward mission leaders house and spent the rest of the day there eating copious amounts of food and incredible amounts of dessert. i don't know what is up the people here but they all seem to have the mindset that the only reason you have dinner is so you have something as a prelude to a much larger dessert. the next day was boxing day, which apparently is a real holiday and not just something they put on calendars for fun. it's basically just a round two for the christmas celebration in that everything is still closed (which is why i'm writing on a wednesday) and families get together and play games and eat huge desserts (sometimes preluded by a small meal). this was kind of a weird experience to have two days in a row where we weren’t able to do any work, it was kinda nice at first because it was like hey we’re just going to sit around and do nothing for a while, but i realized about three hours into christmas that sitting around is very very uncomfortable as a missionary. by the time christmas was over i was literally longing to go back to work. i couldn't believe that we had gone an entire day and were really able to do that little missionary work. boxing day was killer! i spent most of the day waiting for it to be over because i really could not sit still. if any of you know me you know that this is really really weird! i've always been less than diligent in work, if you don't believe me just ask my mom about how clean my room usually was, so it was really an eye opener to me to see just how much this work has changed me.

oooookay moving on from my very public introspection. on tuesday we met with david and marie again to talk about david's baptism. david has started drinking coffee again. not because he wants to and not because he feels like he needs it. he actually even told us that the desire to drink it had been taken out of him. but because david has to take about fourteen different medications each day he is subject to some intense drowsiness and he’ll sometimes fall asleep for hours at a time. on christmas day david fell asleep for most of the afternoon and marie was furious with him. so david started drinking coffee again because he wants to support her and because she doesn't want him to stop because she is afraid that he’ll pass out more frequently. this was hard because now david doesn't have a date anymore and marie is becoming less and less okay with us teaching him. but we have seem miracles wrought through david and to david. his faith and testimony are among the strongest that i have ever seen. he truly wants to be baptized and serve god in any way he can.

i have one more miracle i'd like to share before i end this letter. we've been having a hard time in this area finding new people to teach. we've been going finding for most of our proselyting time each day but so far we've been mostly unfruitful. yesterday during companionship study we were talking about our finding efforts and i realized something incredible. i realized that those we needed to teach, those that were prepared to hear the message of the gospel were out there. there were people out there as we were talking that were ready and waiting to meet with us and to grow closer to god. all we have to do is search until we find them. today when we came to the library and started to read our e-mails this girl came down and sat next to us and just started to talk to us about her church and our church and told us that she had met with missionaries briefly before. honestly my first reaction was a little bit of annoyance. i was trying to read my e-mail and i didn't want to be bothered. then the spirit gave me a thwack on the back of the head letting me know that this was one of the opportunities that we had been praying for. we had a quick but very good discussion about god and about families and we were able to set up an appointment with her and her mother on friday! the lord works in many different and amazing ways. I know that this church is true and i know that the lord answers prayers according to his will. i am grateful to the opportunity he has given me to serve and learn out here in england.

remember i love you all and i'm grateful for your continued love and support.

with love

Elder Michael Jarman



ps. i'm not going to say that you win and i can't compete because that’s not true and you know it



pps. the previous post script was a coded message so if you didn't get it don't worry about it.



ppps. fist bump!



pppps. the previous post script was a not as coded coded message to someone that most people will probably understand anyways but i don't really care because i feel like it got the message across

December 19th, 2011 {butter crumpets and how they relate to time travel}

dear people who aren't in the best british country on earth,

i would just like to start this letter with an experience i had earlier this week.

i was sitting in my flat at my desk studying a little before i went to bed that night when all of a sudden it hit me. i looked down at my hand and saw that i was drinking tea, i looked down at the plate i had sitting on my desk and what did i see. (no annie squirrels were not involved whatsoever so stop guessing that!) i saw a buttered crumpet! i looked again at the tea, then i looked again at the crumpet, then back to the tea, then back to the crumpet and then (pause for effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ) it hit me!

i was having tea and crumpets!  my world was rocked! i sat there in stunned silence for the space of at least a sixtieth of an hour just taking in the fact that i was enjoying tea and crumpets before bed in a very very english city south of london and for some reason that i do not fully comprehend i felt like i was tubing (disclaimer: only some of you will understand the comment about tubing if you read this sentence and do not immediately smile, laugh, or show some other form of amusement then you need to get out more, and by get out more i mean you need to come to lake powel with my family more often, yes i know that i probably haven’t invited you to come to lake powel so it's a little bit unfair for me to throw in a lake powel reference and blame you for not understanding it but i don't really care because i'm in england and therefore you have no method of stopping me!).



so in other news i've also been on a mission doing missionary stuff. we had a bit of a rough week because we weren't able to get out and teach that often due to elder peach's driving tests down in worthing and the mission wide christmas conference, which i very much enjoyed but it did eat up a whole day of mission work. but in the seemingly small amount of time we've had to teach we did manage to find a new investigator named mohammed. as you probably inferred mohammed is a muslim so we have a bit of an issue in that we won't be able to teach him much until we find out whether or not teaching him christianity could endanger his life. you see we have a lot of muslims in this country and if they are ever to return to a muslim country as a christian their life would very much be in jeopardy so were a little bit restricted in what we can and can't do concerning muslim investigators. he was very interested in what we taught though and wanted a book of mormon. we couldn't give it to him then though because we had to teach him at a train station, because his roommates are muslim and don't like christians, and he was going to meet them right after he met us so he couldn't have a book that had jesus christ on its cover. so it is a little bit dodgey but we will do whatever we can to bring this man closer to christ without killing him in the process (ps. dodgey is the english word for sketchy and sketchy, for all you old people out there, is the hip and new way of saying troublesome)

in less great news kim dropped us earlier in the week quite suddenly and wouldn't explain why she didn't want to be taught anymore so were back down to one baptismal date for david. it's hard to lose an investigator who was so excited about baptism when we first met her and especially hard because she won't even let us know why but me and elder peach aren't letting it get us down. we’re exited to go out and find more people and we'll do whatever is required of us to help those we meet come unto christ.

i love you all and just want to let you know that crumpets are about a billion times better than cream puffs, that i tried the spell "sunshine yellow butter mellow turn this stupid fat rat yellow" and it did not work, unless the intended effect was to offend my companion by implying that he was fat (i don't get how he came to that conclusion).

i also want to let you all know that i love this work and that i feel the lords help each day and have gained a strong testimony of prayer

please pray as often as you can and when you can't pray just keep yourself focused toward the lord and you will begin to see miracles wrought in your life (:> (that’s a backwards smiley with a hat in case you were wondering)



take luck

sincerely

elder Michael Jarman

January 9th, 2012 {bifocals and nutella}

dear dearies,

you know i feel really old using the word dearies but hey when in rome do like the english do. anywhays so i've been in the mission field a monthy now and i really feel like i got here about three days ago. not only because i'm still walking around like a lost puppy in seattle with no idea what i'm doing or why the cars are all on the wrong side of the street. and i'm supposed to be here to provide people with direction!  it's a little bit like hey i have no idea where i am right now and i only understood about half of what you said because you sound like the lead singer of mumford and sons but i'm here to tell you where you came from and where you’re going with a little bit of why we’re here on the side. it doesn't help that anytime you study missionary work in the scriptures it basically tells you over and over again that oh ya the missionaries were great but really they weren't able to do anything and i'll be like whaaaaaa and the scriptures will be like ya as it turns out the authority they had to speak was given to them oh and on top of that even the words they said were given to them so ya basically you can't do anything. it's a really big confidence booster. (a little bit of british sarcasm, which by the way is anything a brit says!) so what we do out here is we work as hard as we can and we study and we pray and work a little bit more and then if it is the lords will miracles happen. and we had a miracle yesterday that i want to tell you about but in order for you to understand it i need to explain a little bit of less fun backstory. this last week we had to drop david and marie. this was hard because david still has a testimony and many times he's expressed a sincere desire to enter the church. but him and marie stopped keeping commitments and they stopped coming to church so we didn't have a choice but to drop them, we did invite them to start coming to church and to visit the temple visitors center and some people from the ward are going to work with them to see if they can start progressing again so there is still hope there. k so now to continue i have to tell you about alan. alan is this guy who was apparently baptized in bolivia when he was nine and hasn't really been to the church since. because of that he doesn't really know much about the church and has an entirely nonmember family. he contacted the missionaries before i got to this area and they've been coming around and teaching him and inviting him to come to church. alan was actually the first person i taught right after i got into this area. i love alan he is probably one of the funnest and friendlies people i have met since i got out here but he hadn't been able to come to church yet so we had to stop meeting him until he started coming to church. on our way to church on sunday we were still a little bit sad about david and marie and we were talking about that when we pulled up to a red light and alan was in the car next to us. we excitedly rolled down the window and he asked us where we were going and we said to church and then we asked him where he was going and he jokingly said oh i'm going to church and drove off. then when we got to church we were surprised when alan showed up just a few minutes later. when he got out of his car he explained that his six year old daughter had been in the backseat during our little exchange and had begged him to take her to church. so basically like i said, we do all we can and then if it be the will of the lord he will work in mysterious ways and bless us abundantly with miracles when we need it most. missionary work is the most humbling work i've ever been involved in, no matter what i do or how hard i work i can do nothing without the lords help. there is no way anything would ever happen out here if it wasn't for the continual support and blessings i receive each day. i saw a devotional where elder bednar was speaking in the mtc and he said "you all are probably wondering if you have what it takes, if you can do this. well of course you can't. i know this because i know that i do not have what it takes to be a member of the quorom of the twelve and i can only do what i have been called to do because the lord guides me and lifts me every step of the way". please remember that as members of the church you all have made covenants to remember christ in all that you do and that you are called to serve him continually. do not ever doubt the ability you have to spread the gospel in each of your individual lives. i know that as you strive to serve the lord and as you do all you can to do what he would have you do the lord will bless you and guide you. he will uplift you in ways that you would of never thought possible. i love you all and i love my savior.

with love

Elder Michael Jarman



ps. for anyone who is interested in an amazing book of mormon study read and compare 2 nephi 2 and alma 42. it’s totally worth it i promise!

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

December 8th, 2011 {hailing from Epson}

no i'm not trying to sound british by announcing my first area using the word hailing. it's actually hailing from epson!  . . .  or in epson . . . either one grammar thing was never my speaking good.  anywho i'm in my first area with my trainer in a little area south of london (i think that’s why they call it london south) called epson with my first field companion. his name is elder peach and he's from tennesse and the district leader of this area. i met my mission president yesterday and that was an amazing experience. he was basically the coolest funniest and most spiritual people i have ever ever met. to sum him up he worked under president Gordon B. Hinckley for a number of years as the head of the audio visual department of the church. he actually was the head honcho for the entire production of the testaments! he told us that President Hinckley would call him quite often to ask how work was going and that President Hinckley  would always start the conversation by saying "so how’s my chief slave doing". it's amazing the stories that president shamo has, and the spirit that surrounds him in quite literally overwhelming. any and everything he says is powerful witness of just how true this church is and if i can even become half as strong as he is i'll be able to convert half of my mission before the oylmpics (which may or may not include daniel radcliff).

so yesterday after we got in and i was assigned my area and my trainer we got back to epson with about five hours left in the day before we had to be back in our flat so we first went and got some food because otherwise i wouldn't actually be able to eat all week. i now understand why they call entering the field "being born", when we got to the store elder peach looked at me and asked me what kind of food i wanted to get and i just sat there. what kind of food did i want to get? i didn't know! getting food for me usually meant writing it on the "to shop" list at home and just waiting till it magically showed up. i had no idea how to get my own food. i have a decent idea of what to do with it once it's in the house but i had no idea on how to get it there or what to get.

anyways past my infantile disposition we eventually got food back to our flat and went and taught a less active member. at least we think he's a member, he apparently got baptized in bolivia when he was nine and hasn't been to church since so were having some trouble finding his records. he did decide to come to church this sunday so that was good. today we've been out and about and i was only able to do e-mail because elder peach didn't get to e-mail due to transfers so president is having him do it today. (my actual p day is on monday) were teaching a blind couple (david and marie) in about an hour and one of them has a baptismal date on the twenty fifth so hopefully i don't mess it up and scare him off from the church.



k i love you all and i'm super proud of you all for withstanding the first hurricane to hit the wasatch mountains.

i'm super happy to be in my mission finally and i hope i can help bring about some good here!

with love

Elder Michael Jarman

December 6th, 2011 {i'm leaving}

k i don't actually have much time to write today.

they just gave us five minutes to tell you that i'm leaving the mtc tommorow and i will be with my new companion serving in my first area by six o clock tommorow (that will be eleven am for you guys)

um in other news i saw elder truman welch last week. he's the missionary for the ward that the mtc resides in.

um and thats all i have for now

sorry about how short this e-mail is i'll be telling you more once i get to the field i'm sure