Well, first of all, people were not kidding when they called this place "Fat-ford" instead of Thetford. No joke, we get fed almost every single day. And this ain't no English roast, I'm talking AMERICAN FOOD. This week we have had a vegan meal, the best chicken I think I've ever tasted, breakfast for dinner (waffles, hashbrowns, sausage, bacon, MAPLE SYRUP since that's a novelty here, and eggs.), pizza, Cafe Rio-style burritos, curry, and ravioli. Yes. That is a meal every single day. Mama Mia. This place is the danger zone for my health hahaha. But don't you worry, Sister Wilson and I WORK IT in our exercise (because 30 minutes totally makes up for all that food, right?). Seriously, I feel like if I recount this week it mainly revolves around food... Here's the difference between American and English food: FLAVOR. Now that I'm with all these Americans, I realise how bland everything is in England haha.
We did have quite the experience though, and it revolves around the night we had curry... Sister Wilson and I were going to tract a neighbourhood that some members in the ward live in. They said that they had a lot of awesome neighbours, so we thought we would give it a shot. When we arrived we decided to quickly stop by and ask which of their neighbours they thought would be good for us to talk to. These members are AMAZING, so they were just like "well, let us take you over there and introduce you to them!" We make our way outside and it was beautiful and warm and sunny and we were all having a nice chat in the neighbour's front yard. Sister Wilson was wearing a bright yellow top and a ton of these bugs were all over her because of it. She's not a big fan of the little critters, so she was like "I'm gonna go get my jacket so these bugs stay off of me!" She runs to the car and we watch her open the door, grab her jacket, throw her bag in, then close the door. She puts her jacket on, then goes to open the door again andddddddd it was locked. Anddddddd the keys were also locked inside. Andddddd the phone was also locked inside. Anddddddd we were far from home.
The sweet member and their neighbour that we were talking to were like "IT'S OKAY! We can just google how to get into the car. It'll be fine" and so they retrieve this long wire and a door hedge and a screwdriver and went to work. They were prying and pulling and shoving this wire through the door, and surprisingly they got it through (after about 45 minutes....). Then they just had to work on getting it to the button in the middle of the console.... yeah, that wasn't quite so easy. After about an hour of trying, they threw in the towel and we looked for a person who could come unlock it for us... for only £170!!!! So we were like "hold up, NO WAY." Then the wife of the neighbour we were talking to came out and asked if we had any sort of coverage for the car. OH YEAH! (I know, we are so bright:)), but the problem was we had no phone, so we had no way to call the Elder in the office who helps with this kind of stuff. Soooooo we resorted to calling the only number I knew by heart.... which was Stevenage, of course! We called and Sister Searle was just cracking up at the whole scenario. She gave us the numbers we needed, and finally we were able to get it all sorted and got a guy that would come and do it {at no cost to us}.
Since we had crashed this family in our ward's whole Saturday, we decided that we would go tracting around their neighbourhood while we were waiting for the key guy to show up. By this point it had started to sprinkle. The members gave us a huge umbrella and we set off. Then the worst rainstorm I've seen since I've been on my mission (and this is England, land of the rain, I'm talkin' about right here) started. I'm talking major lightening and thunder and just buckets pouring down. As people answered their doors, we were yelling "HELLO! WE ARE THE MISSIONAR..."
"No thank you!" *door slam*
They couldn't even hear us over the thunder and rain. After a few of those we were like "okay, maybe the key guy is here" so we start to head back. Then the members zoom up in their huge American Ford Excursion, told us to hop in, and took our little soaking selves back to their home and made us hot chocolate. And then made us dinner. Isn't that the sweetest thing in the world?! The day literally turned from sunny and bright to flash flooding. So bizarre. The key guy finally came and unlocked our car. In all, this was about a 5 hour ordeal. BUT there were a few positives to this experience: 1) we got to really get to the know the neighbours of the members, and we hope we will be able to see them again and teach them, 2) our car got nice and clean in the downpour... okay, I'm struggling to think of more positives, but it was a random funny incident. We are going to make some cookies and brownies to thank the members and their friends for helping us!
The rain got to me. And my glasses.
I'm now just realising that this story is mega long, so if you made it all the way through, congrats! The rest of the week was really great. We met some new amazing people that we will be teaching. One cool experience that I'll try to briefly share (but I can't promise ya it will be that brief) was when we were talking to people in the street. We were walking around Brandon, and right off the bat we spoke to this woman who just talked and talked and talked. Literally we couldn't get a word in. We were trying to politely exit the conversation but it was impossible! Once we were finally able to move on, I was a bit annoyed that she had taken so much of our finding time. We had to make our way to Tesco to buy some tp (gotta have that essential, am I right??) and on our way back we stopped and talked to this guy. Even though it was raining, we had a super good conversation with him, and he said he just wanted to find peace in his life, and we were like "HEY! We can help you with that!" So we set up another appointment with him. He told us that he didn't know why he decided to walk to Tesco that day instead of drive. He said he NEVER walks there. To make things even wilder, it was raining! So he had no idea what inspired him to walk. That's pretty cool, right?! We taught him about the plan of salvation and he really loved it. He wasn't able to come to church due to work, but he is so so excited to learn more. It was a cool little miracle :)
I hope you all have an amazing week! Sorry for talking (or I guess I should say "writing") your ear off!
Love,
Sister Syddall
The districttttt. I look like a giant hahaha SO TALL. Luckily Sister Wilson is pretty tall too!
Yeah, you read that right. SIX POUNDS. That's like NINE DOLLARS. Count your blessings, folks in the USA.
No comments:
Post a Comment