#triolife

HEY PALS!

This week has just been so good. So, SO good. I have to say, I was a bit nervous to be in a trio and how the dynamics would work, but I have just absolutely loved every second of being with Sister Johnston and Sister Yau! Sleeping on a majorly springy mattress on the floor has been totally worth it. Oh, and not to mention the plus of actually having a shower. Oh, how I'm going to miss that when I go back to Gillingham :')  Oh yes, and even though you've probably already realized (due to the fact that this is a day late) it was transfers this week! I will be heading back to Gillingham 2nd Ward and my new companion will be Sister Garcia!! I believe that she is from Mexico...? At least from what I've heard. It will be fun to get to know yet another culture! As I thought back through my companions, I realised how I have had the opportunity to learn about so many cultures... Switzerland, Ethiopia, Norway, England, Hong Kong, all the wonderful American companions, and now Mexico! Pretty cool! If I'm wrong about where she is from, I'll let ya all know next week haha.

Where to even begin with this week though? Canterbury is simply BREATHTAKING. I'm not kidding you, when you walk around the main street, there are just all of these old beautiful castle-like buildings, and it's just such a charming lil place. We also got to go a few times to a place called Whitstable, which is right by the sea. It had so many cute little boutiques and cafes (even though we couldn't go in... #proselytinglife). Serving for a week here has made me realise how plain most of the places I've served in are... but hey ho, that's alright! I still have a special bond with my small, plain towns. I'm pretty sure as I have explained to a countless number of people why I am here for one week, EVERY SINGLE ONE has said, "oh... I'm so sorry you have to go back to Sittingbourne..." But that's ok, I'm pumped!

We had a district meeting right off the bat, and what do you get when you get together an American, an American, an American, an American, an American, an American, and a Chinese?! The Canterbury District hahaha! A little bit different from the diversity of the Gillingham District, but it was still a party. I've also had the opportunity to be around the Tuttles, a senior couple, a little bit more, and they're just so great! They've fed us, given us lifts to places, and I can't even count the amount of cookies Sister Tuttle has made for different events. She has made more than 600 dozen cookies since they've been here serving (about 9 months). Wowza.

We had quite the experience this week of going to a place called Faversham, which is in Canterbury's area, to teach one of my investigators, R. He lives in the Gillingham 2nd Ward boundaries, but works in Canterbury's, so we decided to meet at what I thought was a restaurant near the train station. When we arrived, the whole place was just wild. There was some parade going on with all of the towns in Kent, and it was just a madhouse. What we thought was just a nice lil restaurant ended up being a pub, and it was soooo hectic and we couldn't spot R there. We began a mad dash around town to try and find him, and when we couldn't get through to him and didn't see him anywhere, we were about to give up. But I felt like we should check the pub one more time, and lo and behold, he was in there, sipping his cup of coke, patiently waiting a good 45 minutes for us. He had forgotten his phone so he had no way of contacting us. Through the noise we tried to see how he has been feeling as he has read and prayed and come to church. We had a whole lesson planned, but the setting definitely was not conducive to the spirit, so we kept it short and sweet... and learned the lesson of never teaching in a pub again!

On Sunday we had a cool opportunity to hear from a Rabbi at a fireside. He has attended a few temple open houses with Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, and is associated with a lot of wonderful leaders in the church. He is a good friend of Elder Tuttle's. This Rabbi told us about his journey of finding the Jewish faith and taught us more about ancient temples and the sacrifices they offered. It was very eye-opening, and a cool experience!

Being in the Canterbury Ward has just been fantastic. I made so many great friends so quickly, and I am sad I won't really see many people again :(  I'm crossing my fingers that we will have Stake Conference before I go home so I can see them all! I HAVE LOVED BEING HERE! But the Lord needs me back in Sittingbourne, and that will be wonderful too.

I'll leave you with a sweet expression Sister Yau taught me: "sau sang la" <3 ... you can all take a guess at what it means hahaha. But really "O OI LEI"... that means I LOVE YOU ALL! Have a great week!

Love,
Sister Syddall


OH! I FORGOT TO WRITE ABOUT THIS! We got to go to a Japanese restaurant and eat some authentic food, and after I finished all of my food, I realised I had this picture of my dad! I decided to recreate it with what I had left :)  It made me decide that I love Japanese people and I want to go there someday!! And the food was delicious.

(before our food was gone haha)

The Three Amigos

HELLO FRIENDS

So. This week is bittersweet because my lil Brit Sister Topp is leaving me to go to Hawaii :(  I'm currently writing this email on the train journey to London to drop her off and say adios. Sad sad day. But I am very excited for her and the many great adventures that she has ahead!

Now I'm gonna be partying it up in a trio! I will be serving in Canterbury for 10 days and will be with Sister Johnston and Sister Yau! Sister Johnston is from good ol' Texas USA, and Sister Yau is from Hong Kong. This will bring me back to the good old MTC days of being in a trio!

This week has been really good! In our area we've been going through a bit of a dry spell. It's been a tough transfer trying to find people to teach, and it's been a big struggle getting people to come to church because the location is not very easy to get to. And I've come to find on my mission that people don't really want to have to TRY very hard. HA, it's great... BUT this week I wouldn't say we got a flood, but we definitely got a lil sprinkle because our pal R was FINALLY able to come to church! We found R a few weeks ago, and he has not been able to come yet, but HE CAME THIS WEEK. And he loved it. And he wants to come next week and... I won't be there ;') but the ward will take good care of him!

Oh, this week I got stung by a wasp and it just sat there on me. I started freaking out sooooooo much, so I was like "Sister Topp!!! Get it off of me!!" She just stood there in fear, not knowing what to do hahahaha, so I finally mustered up the courage to slap the wasp off of me. I wish I could have seen this from someone else's perspective. Oh, and to make matters worse, it essentially stung my armpit. Score.

This week we also had interviews, and talking to President and Sister Stevens is just always such a treat! They're the greatest. I love them so so much! And we got to watch FOURTH FLOOR LAST DOOR again, so I was one happy camper!

LIFE IS GREAT THOUGH! I am excited to serve in Canterbury for a week and to see what I can learn while I am there. Being a missionary is simply the best thing in the whole entire world! I love it with all my heart :)

Love,
Sister Syddall

Post post: a little later today Shi sent some more fun pictures from her day in London... YAY!

FOURTH FLOOR, LAST DOOR

Familia and Amigos!!!

My lone picture this week... the zoneeeeee

This week has been... well quite ordinary, to be honest with all of you. Except for... GENERAL CONFERENCE!!! Man oh man, that was just out of this world. If you didn't get a chance, I highly suggest you go to lds.org and listen to the talks. It was overall so motivating and it just felt like I was persistently slapped in the face with the Spirit. And that is one good feeling, my friends.

One of the talks that really inspired me was President Uchtdorf's in the General Women's Session (yes, we are a little late getting that). I loved his focus on faith. One of the questions that I went to conference with was how I could continually strengthen and build my faith, and his talk immediately made me feel the assurance that the Lord was aware of my question, and it was answered so beautifully. And of course I loved the FOURTH FLOOR, LAST DOOR. Gave me some good motivation in the missionary work. The miracles come after we put in all of our effort and have FAITH. I wish I could tell you all about some cool experience we had with the last door this week... but it hasn't happened quite yet. But I'll be sure to inform you when it does!

Here is a section from President Uchtdorf's talk that I loved:

"Faith is a strong conviction about something we believe -- a conviction so strong that it moves us to do things that we otherwise might not do. Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."

"While this makes sense to believing people, it is often confusing to nonbelievers. They shake their heads and ask, 'How can anyone be certain of what they cannot see?' To them, this is eveidence of the irrationality of religion.

"What they fail to understand is that there are more ways to see than with our eyes, more ways to feel than with our hands, more ways to hear than with our ears.

"It's something like the experience of a young girl who was walking with her grandmother. The song of the birds was glorious to the little girl, and she pointed out every sound to her grandmother.

"'Do you hear that?' the little girl asked again and again. But her grandmother was hard of hearing and could not make out the sounds.

"Finally the grandmother knelt down and said, 'I'm sorry, dear. Grandma doesn't hear so well.'

"Exasperated, the little girl took her grandmother's face in her hands, looked intently into her eyes, and said, 'Grandma, listen harder!'

"There are lessons in this story for both the nonbeliever and the believer. Just because we can't hear something doesn't mean there is nothing to hear. Two people can listen to the same message or read the same scripture, and one might feel the witness of the Spirit while the other doesn't.

"On the other hand, in our efforts to help our loved ones experience the voice of the Spirit and the vast, eternal, and profound beauty of the gospel of Jesus Christ, telling them to 'listen harder' may not be the  most helpful way.

"Perhaps better advice for anyone who wants to increase faith is to listen differently. The Apostle Paul encourages us to seek the voice that speaks to our spirit, not just to our ears. He taught, 'The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.'"

Loved this talk.

Sorry my email doesn't have a lot of jazziness. I'm trying to think of what I could do to spice it up...

I found out that the punctuation mark "." is not called a "period" here, it is called a "full stop." I got the weirdest response from my foreign pals over here when I tried to call it a period.

Also, the chapel here is constantly FREEZING. Typing this email has been a struggle because my fingers are moving at the speed of a snail. I felt like I was in the tundra throughout all of conference, but it was still SO GOOD.

OK I love you all! Have an amazing week!

Love,
Sister Syddall

STAND FAST

Heyyyyyyoooooo pals!

What to start with this week, hmmmmmm.... This is always the hardest part about writing these emails. Do I just go straight into it, or have some sort of awkward introduction? I always seem to choose the latter and I don't know why hahaha. Carrying on.

WELL. This week we had District meeting which is always just a party. What do you get when you put together a Brit, Australian, Cambodian, German, Brazilian, and American? The Gillingham district! (Plus Elder and Sister Tuttle from UT.) Recently I've been thinking about how grateful I am to have connected with so many people from literally all over the world. It's a blessing to know all of these great people! I had to give a training on "What makes a successful missionary," which I felt was something that I needed a good reminder of. It's easy to feel a bit down when things don't necessarily seem to be going as smoothly as desired, but our success as missionaries is "measured primarily by [our] commitment to find, teach, baptize, and confirm people and to help them become faithful members of the Church who enjoy the presence of the Holy Ghost." It really comes down to the commitment we have. We have to allow other people to exercise their own agency, but as we do our best, we can feel confident that our efforts are accepted by the Lord. Being asked to give this training gave me the assurance that Heavenly Father knew exactly what I needed to study to lift me up!

The district

If you want to know why I needed some uplifting of the spirit, it's because we had 10 appointments where people hosed us. TEN. I was seriously baffled that so many people just became uncontactable and didn't show to their appointment. But that's not gonna get me down!

We had an exchange this week, and I had the pleasure of being with Sister Swann from Australia! We came out on the mission together and have ALWAYS wanted to be companions, but I guess I'll take the one day haha. Let me tell ya, this whole day was a PARTY. I don't know if I've ever laughed so hard, she is a complete crackup. And we also got to teach some amazing lessons. We trotted around Ilford for the day, and that place is just happenin'. So many people to talk to and teach!! A little bit different than Sittingbourne...

Exchanges

We had a dinner appointment with the sweetest elderly couple in the ward, the Gilberts. They are from Jamaica and have been members of the church for about 30 years. Brother Gilbert has recent been diagnosed with dementia, but at this point it is not too bad. But because of this, his past Pentecostal preacher comes out and it is HILARIOUS. He has two favourite scriptures: John 3:16 and Galatians 5:1. He says "STAND FAST IN THE LIBERTY OF CHRIST" with so much conviction, and then proceeds to say it about another 10 times throughout the evening, and you just can't help but smile until you think your mouth is just gonna fall off because it's the greatest thing ever.

On Sunday evening we visited a sister named S that has not been baptised, but because of poor health conditions she cannot travel to come to church. Her caregiver, G, is a member but has not been to church for some time. Usually our meetings with them are quite scattered, but always make me laugh. S wanted to take pictures with Sister Topp and I, so we asked G to take some photos. I ended up with 147 new pictures in the span of about 30 seconds haha! And we weren't ready in about 95% of them. And the lighting was terrible. But it's the thought that counts :)

1 of the 147 pictures with S

On Sunday I also had the opportunity to talk in sacrament meeting speaking on trials. At the end of my talk, I spoke about holding to the iron rod and pressing forward through trials. I shared a story about a time when I did not hold tight to a rod... on a jet ski... and ended up with a killer rope burn. I'm not kidding you when I say, the ENTIRE congregation just about lost it from laughing. I have to admit, I was pretty astounded that I got a room full of 60+ year old English men and women laughing. Check that one off the bucket list haha! I'm glad my pain brought happiness to others :')

I guess I'll end this one with something that doesn't make sense to me in England. Here a milkshake is literally just thick milk with some flavouring in it. Where is the appeal in that?!

Ok. I love y'all. Keep smiling!

Love,
Sister Syddall

Sittingbourne's Biggest Knit

Hello family and friends!

I hope you've all had a splendid week! This week has had its challenges, but hey, that's life, right? This area has posed to be a challenging one. As I mentioned last week, I've been told it's the "refiners fire," and boy, have I felt it! There really are no solid people we are teaching right now, and we just seem to be getting hosed for most of our appointments. No [investigator] has come to church in a very long time, so that's another challenge. And the people in this area are just not very open to hearing anything about the gospel. I know if I keep the faith, we will see MIRACLES. As I thought back to all of my other areas, I realised how everywhere I have gone has started with essentially no teaching pool, but the Lord always had a way of getting things moving. Sometimes I find myself not understanding why I've never been able to go to an area where it is just booming with people eager to learn and progress, but then I take a step back and see the amazing things I've learned in each and every area I've served in. I know that I am here for a reason, and at this point, things can only go up! This will likely be the last area I serve in (not guaranteed though), so I am going to make the most out of it! The bright side is that Sister Topp is so great, and the ward is all so lovely!

This week the weather has also been whack. It started off just BLAZING. I'm talking pushing 90 and tons of humidity. I thought I was about to die haha. I was telling Sister Topp how much I wanted it to be rainy again. Well... my prayers were answered because overnight it did a complete 180 and it was pouring and windy and our umbrellas couldn't stand it. Not exactly what I had in mind, but now it's nice and breezy and autumny, so I can't complain!

Now to the title of my email. We stopped by a less active man's home and this adorable little 5 foot old man answers the door. We started talking to him and he's just hilarious. He's wearing a silver chain necklace and a white t-shirt and was talking to us about how life had been going. Then he all of a sudden begins talking about how he had knitted 5 feet of a scarf that day. I was just sitting there thinking about how much knitting that was, then he goes on to tell me he holds the record in the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest knitted scarf. And it's TWENTY SIX MILES LONG. Yes. You heard that right. 26 miles. Then he told us that they call him "Sittingbourne's biggest Knit." How excited he was as he told us about his knitting just made me smile so much hahaha.

Hmmmmm. What else. Well, I forgot to mention last week that:
we don't have a shower (baths for dayssssss),
we sleep in the kitchen (yes, our beds are in the KITCHEN),
and our fridge is about the size of a small cupboard.
Living the luxurious life haha!

I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Love,
Sister Syddall

Week of change

Hey everybody!

So this week has been super weird, actually, but it's also been good. I'll just jump right into it!

As I mentioned last week, I am in a new area. I live in a place called Sittingborne, and it is SO different from my previous areas! But overall I think it's a super cute lil place (and actually when I say "lil" it's way bigger than my last area haha), and there are some of the cutest houses ever, and it's right by the sea, so it's a fun change. We also cover an island in our area - although I think it's a solid 200 metres away from the border of land haha. But that's still an adventure! The island is super weird honestly. It's infamous around the mission for having very strange people, and I have to say it kind of feels like you're in an old 80's movie when you're there. Blast into the past for sure hahaha! I have also been told that I am in the "refiners fire" because it's a tough area, but I'm sure all will be well!

My companion, Sister Topp, is from England! YAY! My first Brit companion :) She's helping me perfect my accent so I can wow everyone when I get home haha. I mentioned last week that she's just been in the field for 6 weeks, but she's a ROCKSTAR. Seriously killin' it. Unfortunately our time together will not be very long-term because she is waiting for her visa to go to HAWAII. Pretty sweet, right? But that takes me back to earlier in the week to explain why it's been so odd...

On Wednesday, Sister Hudson and I began the trek to London from Thetford for transfers. I'm pretty sure my bags keep putting on weight, and it just gets harder every time I transfer. We finally made it there, and as we were all gathered, Sister Topp arrived and she's like "Oh, we are staying in London overnight because I have an interview at the US Embassy tomorrow!" I was a bit confused because no one had mentioned it to me. So we, along with another companionship who has a sister waiting for a visa, made our way over to the mission home and waited to be told what was going on. I was a bit annoyed because, had someone told me, I would have packed much more smartly to have the stuff I needed overnight together, but all was well. While we were just waiting, the APs came up and are like "Sooooooo. There's really nothing for you to do today, so go take another p-day and look around London!" So we went to Buckingham Palace and Harrods (aka the great and spacious building... seriously... look it up) and had a fun day! It was definitely the most spontaneous day of my whole mission. And we all came to the conclusion of why having plans is so important... because otherwise ya just end up wandering around.

Spontaneous London p-day! Me, Sister Mcfarland, Sister Topp, and Sister Maughan.

Group selfie at Buckingham Palace

Me and Sister Mcfarland! We actually sat next to each other on the plane ride to England :) TIME FLIES!

That's allllllll store.

Harrods. Enough said. 

(BTW, that's over $69,000)

This outfit only costs my life savings...

Another treat of this whole day was that I got to spend time with Sister Searle! She's training a new Sister, so do you know what this means?! I am a grandma!! And since we were around London all day, I got to meet my granddaughter, Sister Oo. And she's awesome!

My daughter and granddaughter. 

Thursday morning we headed to the embassy and got that all sorted out, and Sister Topp and Sister Maughan were.... APPROVED. We were worried about that one because they seem so sketchy (hah), so now it's a waiting game to see how long I get to keep Sister Topp. Hopefully at least for the transfer, but we shall see!

Now I am once again surrounded by the Brits, and I've got to say I've missed these folks :) AND I get English meals again. SCORE. I've missed my English roast potatoes and Yorkshire pudding.

The cute houses in Sittingborne. 

A better quality picture with the Parks (from last week)!! I'm going to miss them so much!

Well, I'm sure next week I'll have a little bit better of an idea of what this area is like and such. I hope you all have a fabulous week!

Love,
Sister Syddall

STEVEN

Hello everybody!

I'm sorry for forgetting to mention last week that it was transfers... but to update you all on that, I will sadly be leaving this great area and will be follow-up training a sister in Gillingham! I will be in the wonderful Canterbury Zone, and other than that I have no idea about anything haha! I'm sure I'll have much much more to update you on next week. But besides that, it's been a super great week! I want to start off by talking about a little miracle:

In our mission we do something called "mind the gap," or for a shorter term "gaps." I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but it consists of doing four little 2-minute role plays each day with our companion where we teach different principles and we choose one of our current investigators and try to act as them. Every meeting that we have as missionaries they choose a companionship at random to stand before the other missionaries and teach a "gap." One night, as Sister Hudson and I were beginning our gaps, I said, "hey, let's think of someone we will meet in the future and teach them a gap!" At the exact same time, Sister Hudson and I said "STEVEN." Now, don't ask me why we both thought of the name Steven, but we took this as a sign. We were DETERMINED to find Steven! Over the next few days, each time we would begin our finding, we would say a prayer that we might find Steven. A few days passed and we still hadn't found him. BUT THEN, one beautiful sunny day as we began our finding, right off the bat we met a super great guy. He had so many great questions and was seeking to find truth. I bet you can guess where this is going... as we set up a return appointment with him, we were like "hey, what's your name?" And he said "I'm Steven!" Right at the moment I just couldn't help but to smile so stupidly, and Sister Hudson looked at me with a big grin on her face. Thinking back, he was probably a bit weirded out, BUT nonetheless, he was willing to meet with us again! Since then we've seen him twice, and he is SO great. I'm just sad that I won't get to see his progress :( and actually, neither will Sister Hudson. Elders will now be covering one of the two wards we covered, and Steven is in those boundaries. But hey, at least all of us are on the same team!

This week we also had a lesson with our Polish investigator, and we Skyped in another Sister missionary that is Polish to help us out. Let me tell ya, I don't think I've ever felt so lost hahaha! They were just jibbering away in Polish, and Sister Hudson and I just sat there like a pair of llamas. She is still doing great, and I am so so sad I won't be here to see her progress towards baptism :( but it will still be wonderful!!

This is the Ellis family -- they have been so so great. We always feel like we are at home when we are with them!

This is the Whittle family -- another one that I love. I am going to miss all of these people so much :(

One more -- The Parks! I'm going to miss them SO much!

Saying goodbye to people is just so sad and hard, transfers are never easy! But I know that I will be where the Lord needs me to be :) and I am excited to have even more new experiences!

Oh. And I'm going to miss the American food. And candy. And the people, of course! But I'm on to new adventures!

Have a great week everyone!

Love,
Sister Syddall