it's commonly misconceived that you would not be accosted by wild horses while driving through the new forest

Sent: Monday, April 29, 2013 4:28 AM
Subject: it's commonly misconceived that you would not be accosted by wild horses while driving through the new forest

 

Dear those who have ever changed dinner plans on account of sudden discoveries of green in unexpected places,

So we've had an exciting and eventful week this week. Elder Manga got his license this week so we've began doing missionary work in a car, which is completely different experience to what I’m used to. Mostly in that I don't get as hungry as I used to and my shoes aren't wearing out as quick, surprisingly though I still get just as exhausted by the end of the day, which is interesting. Somehow I guess I always assumed the exhausting part of missionary work was the walking but I guess it's not.

 

The work is going really well in South Hampton; we have an absolute miracle investigator that the missionaries began teaching shortly before I got to the area. Her name is Rebecca and she is an amazingly wealthy woman.  Half a year ago she saw a documentary on funerals and someone in that documentary was a member of the church. She was really impressed with how strong and loving this woman was especially in face of the recent death she had experienced. Then Rebecca basically forgot about the experience. A few months later her husband died of cancer. Through her struggles at this time she had many spiritual experiences and at some point remembered that woman she saw in the documentary and decided to learn more about what she believed. After researching the church for some time online she decided she wanted to be taught and the missionaries showed up a few days later. It’s crazy when we go to her house because she lives out in the countryside. So when we go there we drive down many winding green lanes that have random packs of wild horses roaming around.  It’s basically exactly what I originally pictured when I found out I was coming to England.

 

I’ve enjoyed working in my new calling, it is demanding and requires that I spend a lot more time doing administrative things than I’ve previously done but I’ve already learned a lot. Throughout my mission I’ve been taught and inspired by my leaders and I can easily think of a few leaders that changed me as a missionary and as a person through their ministering. I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about those leaders and what it was about them that helped me so much. Although my leaders have helped me in many ways, the thing that I feel has changed me the most is when leaders helped me to expect more of myself. This never happened through them simply telling me to do more or even to be more. I gained these greater expectations as I worked with them and observed the way they worked and interacted with different people. Especially when I’ve recognized and witnessed a deep love of god and of the people we serve in my leaders it has always left me with a desire to be better and do more and expect more than I have before. None of these leaders were condescending or boastful, they never tore me down for my inadequacies but instead praised me for what I could do and helped me understand where I could be doing better. I’ve already had some experiences where I’ve been blessed to be able to recognize the great potential that the missionaries in this zone have. What I want to do and what my hope is, is to somehow help them to see it as well. I know the only way I can do this is if I trust the lord enough to let him guide me when I speak to or work with any of these missionaries.

Missionary work is fun :)

 

I love you all and I love good cheese, of which there is a great abundance in England

 

With love

Elder Jarman 

 

ps. recently the sun came out in England . . . and there was much celebration

 

 

We had a baptism in the River Mole before I left Redhill

 

The Epsom District

you know. . . this isn't exactly how it's usually done. . .

Dear those who are strangely amused by slide screen screen savers,

Robert was baptised and confirmed over the weekend! this entire week i've been freaking out and praying that everything would go well and it totally did! it's still amazing to me that he has made so much progress in so short of a time. I met Robert the first day i was here in Redhill, we taught him the next day, and then he attended church with us two days after that. the next time we saw him, he committed to be baptised on the ninth of march and stayed firm to that commitment till it was realized.

i've thought a lot about his progress and his baptism and talked a lot about it as well with Elder Keller and other missionaries. when i first met Robert and even the first time we taught him i would never have thought that he would now be a member of the church. even after he accepted a date i, regrettably, had my doubts. throughout the entire process of teaching him i have been repeatedly humbled as i have witnessed Robert’s great faith and the miracles that followed his faith.

i have learned that no matter how bleak the outlook is, and how dark the way looks, God can always provide the way as long as we exercise faith in him. this principle applies in both physical things, such as the many miracles we read about in the scriptures, and even more amazingly in spiritual things. God can change, magnify, and enlighten individuals. the potential of each of his children is much more than any of us can comprehend. it's hard sometimes for us to see this, when we keep on looking at people through the lenses of our own weaknesses. But i've learned that we need to remember that God sees His children a lot differently than we do. Robert has a bright future ahead of him. and i am grateful that the lord has allowed me to get to know him and witness his conversion.

it's always amazing to me how seemingly random people we meet on the streets can become such amazing and great friends--how someone that you first meet with reservation, can become someone who you love dearly. this is one of the most amazing aspects of missionary work and it's something that each of us can, and often do, experience every day. Robert was a stranger only six weeks ago. Now he is a good friend and someone who i will always remember and do my best to support.

life is pretty good :)

well as always i have loads of more stories to tell but alas they’re going to have to wait for another day.

love you all and i'm grateful for all the support you give

with love

Elder Jarman

ps. it's transfer week again. so updates will most likely come around sometime on wednesday.

pps. there's a guy sitting next to me looking at an atheist website. he has the word "hate" tattooed on his knuckles. i think i prefer what’s on my screen.

ppps.it started snowing again today! winter’s not done yet here in england!

pppps. does anyone actually know what a "woodchuck" is? do they actually chuck wood? who named them anyways?

once goes the manatee, twice and you're asking for a bear

dear those who exclude the word vernacular for their vernacular,

After a brief mental review of my many opening to an e-mail i have concluded that i always either begin with an opening that could be considered typical or a commentary on how many of my opening are quite typical which is then followed by a random sentence or phrase that has little to do with anything that would typically be considered relevant to anything relevant. juniper trees. today i decided to break the mold by beginning the e-mail by commenting on both the typicalness of my standard e-mail openings and also my varied but not infrequent commentaries of typicalness in my e-mails. so therefore this e-mail has now been began in a way that was not used to begin before.

so anyways.

we had a REALLY busy week this week it was absolutely amazing how busy and how many teaching appointments we had this week. i will give a sample of yesterday to illustrate. we woke up at six thirty went through the morning routine. studied. started traveling for church at about nine thirty. Robert came and had an awesome fast Sunday! after church we had a brief missionary correlation meeting with the ward missionaries then organized the baptismal service for Robert on Sunday. we then traveled back to redhill and got there about two. went straight from our flat to teach a Ghanaian lady named Maxine at two thirty. left that appointment at about 3:15 traveled to an appointment at 3:30 with a super funny pair named Leroy and Joe. finished that appointment a 4:30 and walked straight to another appointment at 4:45 with two new investigators from the Philippines named Victoria and Heidi who are over here to study. finished that appointment at about 5:45 and then traveled straight to another appointment at 6:15 with a recent convert from Kenya named Binky. we finished that appointment at seven and then walked (while accounting over the phone to our district leader) to an appointment at 7:30 with a recent convert from Brazil named Elian and her friend that she's referred named rahissa. we finished that appointment a 8:30 and then walked back to our flat to arrive at 9:00 for planning. we've been blessed SO much in our work here in redhill and amazingly even though we spent nearly the entire week teaching we were still blessed with four new investigators through the week!

 

it's been really interesting for me to compare this time in my mission with the time i spent at the beginning of my mission in epsom. while i was working in epsom we didn't have too many people to teach. we would spend the majority of our time looking for new people to teach, which is work that is rewarding and honestly one of my favorite things to do as a missionary. but we saw next to no outward fruits from our efforts. now I'm back in epsom ward and it seems like we have to work to stop from drowning in fruit. it's things like this that make you wonder what the difference could possibly be. why are the blessings coming now? why weren't the outward blessings coming then? truth is, i haven't the foggiest. :) the lord will always bless us for doing the right thing and for working diligently in the calling that we have been assigned. as President Uchtdorf taught the joy of priesthood service comes whether we are flying a fighter pilot or a piper cup. although from the outsiders view (and sometimes we can be outsiders even though we're involved) it is easy to judge success from outward fruits. i am learning though that true success comes from our inward commitment to keep commandments, magnify our callings, and diligently press forward on the path of discipleship. as one of my previous Zone leaders taught me, "the lord brings forth the harvest, all we do is everything that he tells us to". or to put it in scriptural language "Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed" i like to put emphasis on the word cheerfully here :).

 

one of the greatest blessings we've seen here continues to be Robert and all the progress he makes as the spirit continues to work changes within him. he is completely living the word of wisdom now and is dedicated to his course of being baptised this Saturday. our bishop announced the baptism at the close of the sacrament meeting and as he did Robert looked over at me with a huge grin on his face and gave me a thumbs up. i love this guy!

 

i'm grateful for your prayers both in my behalf and in behalf of those that I've been privileged to work with. this means the world to me.

 

love you all

sincerely

Elder Jarman

 

ps. there is a man that looks like a younger version of Shaun white sitting opposite from me. he's probably getting creeped out that i keep on looking over at him. . .

 

pps.what is more american than pizza?

 

ppps. a lot of people ask why me and Elder Keller are wearing the same ring (the pro ring) we're starting to become more creative in our answers

 

 

it's a salsa dancing lemon drizzle skydive!

dear anyone that has either literally gotten their nose stuck in a book or has at least laughed at the concept,

we've experienced some great miracles with Robert over this last week. The first came as we taught him on tuesday. we had prepared a calendar for him that had the number of cigarettes he could smoke each day with the numbers slowly cutting down until he would eventually stop. we had planned for him to be allowed twenty five cigarettes for that day. when we came into the teach, before we even started with a prayer he grinned and told us that we were going to be really proud of him because he had only smoked 3 cigarettes that day! we were amazed and humbled. we asked him what day he thought he could completely stop by. he thought about it for a few seconds than looked back and us and simply said "tomorrow" in the end we didn't show him the calendar :) it was very humbling to see how much faith robert had especially in contrast to how much faith we had had as we had planned for him. sure enough when we called him wednesday evening he proudly told us that he had not smoked a cigarette all day! he truly has been experiencing the blessings of the spirit in his life. he reads every day and is very excited for his baptism.

on saturday we rode a train together to go watch a baptism at epsom chapel. on the train ride he saw someone he knew and started talking to them. it wasn't very long into the conversation before Robert proudly announced that he was going to be baptised on the 9th of march:) i love this guy. he has smoked again since wednesday, but he has at this point effectively cut down from around thirty cigarettes a day to about four in three days. we're confident that it will not be long until he has completely stopped once again.

i've been thinking a lot about the atonement this week. i was on exchange with one of my zone leaders this week as we began to teach a lady named sarah. as we began to teach he talked to her about how throughout life we run into many different hard experiences and on top of that we make many many mistakes. he described each of these experiences as being like picking up a pebble and putting it in your backpack. he asked her if she knew what he was talking about and she said yes that she has felt like that many times. he then explained that the only way we can empty our backpack is to follow Christ and to allow him to heal us through the power of the atonement. i've thought a lot about what he said and even more about her response. i've heard this analogy many times before but for some reason this time it took on new meaning. Preach My Gospel says that all the children of God, our brothers and sisters, need relief from the burdens of guilt and shame even though they usually don’t know why. for some reason i've never really considered the universality of these feelings. i recently met someone on the street as well who, when we talked with him about the "backpack of rocks" he acknowledged that he's felt it and knows that it's there but does not believe that it's possible for us to get rid of it. i've met others that believe that they can manage it on their own or are currently seeking to get rid of it by their own means and powers. in each case i bear my solemn testimony that because of Jesus Christ and His atonement, repentance works. as we trust in Him enough to do what He says He heals us and makes us into better people. this is the cause and the message that i get up each morning rejoicing in my opportunity to share it. i can't begin to tell you guys how grateful i am to be a missionary. i've made so many amazing friends and i've become a much better friend because of my service.

the gospel is pretty cool :)

i'm grateful for all the support i've been getting from you all and i'm sorry that i haven’t been able to be more supportive from my end in responding always. know that i love each of you and i pray for you guys as well. i feel and am thankful for your prayers.

with love

Elder Jarman

ps. you know one more plus side to an abundance of rain is the abundance of rainbows. think about it :)

no YOU think about it

pps. this is my shout out to all the awesome missionaries out there, as well as all those that are preparing or returning.

viva le (nuevo) mexico

ppps. i just ate more food than eight hamsters could shake a stick at :) 

traumatic fundamentalism and its link to fruit and nut cereal {Monday, February 18th}

Dear anyone who has ever been surprised with how good a cucumber tastes,

We’ve had an amazing week of miracles this week. You kinda think I would get used to seeing miracle after miracle every day of my mission but they really never get old and the lord never ceases to amaze me with just what he can do.

Robert is still going along really solidly in his preparation for the ninth. We started teaching him the commandments this week and it was really cool to see how readily he accepted them and desired to begin living them. It made me think about what preach my gospel teaches about commandments--that when people begin to live commandments is when they really begin to feel the gospel working in their lives. In this way the commandments are kinda like the instructions on the back of a packet of ramen noodles. You've taken your time looking at how great the noodles look on the front (when you learn about the blessings and purpose of the gospel) but you're never going to end up with such a delicious looking batch of empty carbs unless if you follow the simple direction (often time accompanied with pictures) on the back. At this point with Robert he is so set and so excited to be baptized that the only thing that could possibly stop him at this point would be the addictions that he's battling. We know and he knows though that it is more than possible for him to be clean by that date because frankly God can do anything :)

We had some amazing and some interesting experiences teaching Henry this week as well. When we saw him on Tuesday he began the lesson by telling us that he had some concerns and then describing in detail exactly what his concerns were. (it's not always this easy to determine an investigators concerns by the way) Elder Keller and I just sat and listened as he talked, we probably didn't speak for nearly twenty minutes. As he finished speaking we sat in silence for a moment or two and then asked him one question. We just asked if we could summarize all of his questions and all of his concerns with one question: Did Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ actually appear to Joseph Smith and in actuality organize a church through him. After we asked this question he sat in silence for nearly a minute thinking about our question and then replied that yes if he could determine whether or not the first vision occurred, it could basically resolve all of his other concerns. We then both bore our testimonies of the prophet Joseph Smith and of the power of Moroni's promise. It was so cool to see again just how powerful and unique the message of the restoration is. All of the debating and theorizing in the world about this church and about Joseph Smith and the restored gospel will all amount to nothing to the one question of did it actually happen. Because if it did this one bit of information cuts through all the fog and the static in the world and gets you right on the right track. It is so simple and yet so powerful. I’ve found repeatedly throughout my life that powerful simplicity usually is evidence of the influence of Deity.

I wish I had time to tell you guys about all the miracle that Elder Keller and I see on a daily basis and all the ones especially that I’ve seen this last week but this is going to have to do it for now :)

I love you guys and always I’m grateful for your prayers and your support

With love

Elder Jarman

ps. Elder Keller has ALL of the living scripture films. We’ve been thoroughly enjoying them and we've been using them to teach investigators and recent converts as well

pps. I’ve once again reached the recent conclusion that in fact celery is vastly underrated

ppps. Muffins too for that matter 

manwich with custard? but alas the breakfast menu ends at eleven thirty! {Monday, February 11th}

dear anyone other than the man with six fingers on his right hand,

end of week one in redhill and things are going amazingly well! we've picked up 8 new investigators since i got into the area and already have one new baptismal date with robert (who i can’t remember if i told you guys about last week) he's going to be baptized on the nineth of march in just under a month from today. we had a pretty cool miracle with him in that in our first lesson with him he asked us about the word of wisdom and we briefly explained it to him. when we told him about smoking he was really hesitant about giving up and i kind of got the hint that he really didn't want to. in our second teach with him, after he had attended church and read the first nine chapters of the book of mormon he told us that he really wanted to give up smoking! coincidence? i think not! 

we also started teaching a really cool uni student named henry just yesterday.  he's twenty six and really really intelligent. he doesn't really have a religious background but started becoming much more spiritual in his later years. when we were talking to him he told us about all his theories and ideas about god and it turned out that a lot of the things he had come up with were all mostly true and the only concerns he had were things that were easily answered by the restoration of the gospel. things are going great here. 

sorry i don't have too much time to write this week but just know that the work is going great and i'm loving being back into the epsom ward with all my old friends from the beginning of my mission.

love ya guys tons and i'm grateful for all the support you guys give me

with love

Elder Jarman

ps. german pastries. . . . just as good as they sound

pps. german missionaries even better :)

antediluvian flood patterns and what that has to do with magenta mounds {Monday, February 4th}

dear those who take pleasure in the sound of a toaster when it's finished toasting,

Well! I have some great news and some great stories to tell about my new assignment in a little town we call Redhill.

We started the new transfer with a hailstorm of amazing blessings. The first night after we got into the area we found and began teaching an Indian family named Jiju and Sino. They have two kids and both have been Christian since birth in India before they came to England. They were more than willing to listen and to begin to study the book of Mormon both with and without us. we'll be seeing them again this week soon. Thursday we had great experiences both in finding and teaching. We found a really nice middle aged woman named Christine knocking. When we first knocked on the door she just yelled through the door that she wasn't interested but then as we were walking away she opened the door and invited us in. After we taught her she told us that she had no idea why she invited us in but that she usually doesn't let anyone into her house--in many cases not even her own family members.(incidentally she also had the most energetic Staffordshire bull terrier that I have ever met)

Beginning of Thursday we had no appointments set up for our Friday. But finding went so amazingly well on Thursday, that we ended up spending all of our Friday basically going from one appointment to the other. We taught another new investigator on that day named Robert who is actually the brother of an former investigator that Elder Keller taught before I got to the area.  On Saturday we began teaching yet another new investigator named Leroy--an amazingly funny African man who suffers from a bit of short term memory loss because of a bus accident a few years ago. It's been just blessings followed by more blessings with some whipped blessings to top it all off. (incidentally i also recently ate a cherry flavored piece of chocolate so make of that what you will)

It's been a really interesting experience for me to come to Redhill at this time, it being part of the Epsom ward. On Wednesday I was picked up from my flat in Farnborough and driven to Staines where I waited for some time and met with Elder Pond. (it was the first time I’ve seen him since I left Staines) and then drove from there to Redhill to meet Elder Keller. I felt a little bit like I was rewinding my mission and coming back to where I first started. The fact that I’m now serving with Elder Keller kinda compounds that as well. I have a huge advantage moving into this area in that for most moves you move into a new area where you have no idea how to get around or who's in the ward or what your companion is like. I came into Redhill already knowing my companion, renewing my old friendships with the ward, into an area that I remember like the back of my hand! (incidentally I’ve never really understood that statement. I mean who really spends time contemplating and memorizing the back of their hands)

One of the things I’m most excited about is the chance I have to apply the experience I’ve gained throughout my mission into the service of my first ward.

Going to church yesterday was really funny because it was amusing to count the double takes from the members of the ward. Most would walk up to me and shake my hand and welcome me to the ward then take about two steps away, pause, slowly turn around whilst squinting at my face, slowly raise a finger and say "wait a second. . . . I know you!" This experience repeated itself many many times over the course of the church service.

Another really cool thing for me to see is how much progress certain individuals and families have made over the last nine months. Some people who were just returning to activity when I left have now become fully active members of the ward and in some cases have gotten their families into the church as well.

I got to head off now, but I really could write for like an hour about all the great experiences and insights I’ve gained in my first week in Redhill with Elder Keller. . . but you guys are going to have to wait for another time :)

with love

Elder Jarman

ps. attached is a picture of team bountiful

pps. in England the difference between French fries and English chips is only really a matter of size. guess which one is bigger

they still left a card even though nobody was home

team bountiful