HA!HA! HERE WE GOOOOOO!!!

Good morning lads and lasses!  I hope that you have all had a mighty spectacular week and that you enjoyed the lovely Sabbath yesterday!  We have some exciting stuff this week!

Early in the week we met a lady who has 3 greyhounds and made sure we knew that she goes to the gym and lifts weights and could probably knock us out if she wanted to.  I don't know about that, but she was also drinking and smoking the whole time we were there so we will just say that it was actually the beer talking and not her.  We taught her quite a lot though and we are going back, so that's cool!  She also had 3 greyhounds (they are everywhere over here) and they were all black and they looked like creatures of the night or something.  They are like spooky skinny and weird looking, but they were good dogs.

We had Zone Conference this week as well which is always good fun!  It is great to go hear some messages and training on how we can improve ourselves as missionaries because we can always be better!  It is also way fun  to see some of the other missionaries that I have gotten to know! Following that I went to Stratford Upon Avon again fpr an exchange!  It was with Elder Kinard and whao buddy it was nice to be in a car again for the day!  We met some interesting people there as well.  One was a guy named Ian who lost his faith while he was in training to become a priest and is now looking for it again!  He told us how he was told he has a healing power and can transfer energy to other people and stuff like that, so that's neat....  He also told us how a priest said he had a vision of Ian with a bandaged head wearing a crooked crown and it scared him.  He also got mad at us because all the paintings in our leaflets had Jesus painted with very light skin.  He was just an interesting dude, to be honest.  We also met a guy  named Andy and the first thing he said was, "Ah Mormons!  Just so you know, I'm really hungover!"  So we weren't sure how that was going to go but it was actually quite good when he wasn't blowing his vape in our general direction!

Well, we also got the transfer news yesterday.  It was a 5 week transfer this time around so it was short and it feels like it went REALLY fast!  Elder Jones will be leaving Hinckley to go to Blackwood in Wales and I will be staying.  I also got a call yesterday to let me know I'll be the new District Leader here and I'll be training a new missionary as well!  So pray for me haha because I have a lot of stuff coming my way!  I'll be with another missionary who is training for one week and then I'll get the new guy.  Exciting stuff!

Love you all and I hope that this week is fantastic!  I'll just share a quick scripture with you all!

Mosiah 2:17
And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.

Have a wonderful week everyone!

-Elder Lott

The Nunchinkcley Wood District!

Captain Moroni and Spiderman

2 total studs!

COOL!

Hey lads!  Today has been a P Day full of ping pong and I have been kicking my whole district's butt!  I have lost 2 games and I've played something like 25 games it feels like!  It feels good to be the champion!

We met a lady named Sharon who is talking to us.  She is actually religious, #rare, and she thinks that God is sending us because we keep coming back to see her which is #right!  She is kind of meeting with JW's but she seems ready to cut ties, which is awesome!

The Beast from the East left, but we've had the Beast from the East 2.0 this weekend haha!  It was only Saturday to Sunday but it was still really cold and we got quite a bit of snow.  We've warmed up a lot since yesterday though.  Biking is going well.  My legs are starting to build some tolerance so it hasn't been too bad.  We were off the bikes for a little while because of the storms and Elder Jones had a couple of problems with his bike, but we are back on today!

We haven't had too many dinners in this area sadly, but we can manage okay even with the tight schedule.  We do get some more nutrition than just pasta, don't worry.  Even if it's only coming from a jarred sauce and some frozen chicken, it's still there!  I actually have come to really enjoy curry over here though!  I also made some gnarly brownies from scratch last night while Elder Jones did call-ins.  I freestyled it like crazy because we didn't have everything we needed but they turned out really good I must say!  And yes I am flossing often enough.  Not quite every day, but several times a week!


Sorry, but I don't have much time today!  It's been a good week though, just lots of finding so its been the usual.  Nothing too crazy has happened this week, but that's not all bad!  I'll just leave a quick spiritual thought!

It's a quote from Ezra Taft Benson about humility and I love it!  Sometimes it's hard to be humble haha but I know that when we are willing to submit our will to God's that he blesses us with so much more than we would have had if we didn't!  He is our loving Father and only wants the best for us!  I challenge all of you guys to think of something you can do to be a little more humble this week!

Love you all!  Have a great week!  Cheers!

-Elder Lott

STRATFORD UPON AVON! COVENTRY! BIRMINGHAM!

Hey y'all!  Hope it's been an A-1 week!  It's been an exciting one over here in jolly old England.

Nothing much happened the first part of the week, but on Thursday we were on exchanges with the Zone Leaders so we got to go to Stratford Upon Avon which is a super posh town that is also where our good buddy William Shakespeare was born, so that's pretty neat.  We got there super late because of trains and on our way there we had to pass through Birmingham and I saw the city centre for the first time and holy nuts it was massive!  I don't think I've ever seen so many people in one place!  Sadly we were only in Stratford for a couple of hours and we had to leave at 6:30 the next morning so we didn't see much.  On Friday, Elder Jones went to a meeting in Birmingham with the Zone Leaders and the other District Leaders so I went to Coventry City Centre and it was crazy!  We met up with part of the Coventry District to do some finding and played finding bingo and it was flipping wild!  We found a couple of people who gave us their numbers/Facebook and Elder Yim came in so clutch when we went up to 2 people and their whole conversation was in Mandarin even though his first language is Cantonese!  It was crazy!

After that we all had to train to the Mission Home to meet up with our companions and to head back to our areas but it was so cool because I got to see some of the people I know!  My District for the last two transfers was just the Zone Leaders, my companion who was District Leader, and myself.  Because this was a Leadership Meeting they were all there!  I got to see Elder Staheli again, which was awesome, and I even met his trainer, so we got a quick family picture!  It was just really good to see the people I knew again.  After that we got driven back home by the Zone Leaders, made some not so bad Alfredo sauce, and played some football with the Elders Quorum and Young Men!  And whoa buddy, if I though I was bad at football in the MTC when I was playing with other Americans! These Englishmen are so quick with their feet!  It felt really proper too, hearing them yell with their accents and stuff, so it was pretty cool, but yeah, I'm rubbish at football!  They just need to play me in basketball or something.  lol

But yeah, it's been a good week!  The old teaching pool in Hinckley isn't outstanding right now, but that's why I'm here!  It will change!

Yesterday was Mother's Day for the British Isles, or Mothering Sunday, as they say here, so Happy Mother's Day!  I elected to not Skype home yesterday though because doing it in May makes it a lot closer to six months both ways.  Thanks for being such an incredible mom!  I love you!

Elder Jones is gluten free and has been impressed by my knowledge of the food he can and can't eat.  I said something about gluten in soy sauce when we were shopping one day and he was astonished haha! I wish we had more time to cook for dinner on the mission because one hour is barely enough time to prepare and eat!  Oh well I will survive!

Luckily I was able to fix the bed this week.  We went to a department store and bought some screws and then borrowed a drill from one of the members and we patched it up!  It doesn't look pretty but it is as solid, if not more solid, than it was before it broke! If it breaks again though, it is well past the point of no return.  I think it will hold up for awhile though.

Love you all, and have an awesome week!!  Sorry I don't have more pictures mom!

-Elder Lott

Grandpa, Father, Son

A 3 Generation Photo

With Elder Staheli

Yuuuuuhhhhh

Hi Everyone!  It has been a busy two weeks so I'll try to remember as much as I can!

I am really liking my new area and Elder Jones is a great companion.  It's been a crazy week with finding and teaching!  We have been let in 5 times to teach, which like never happens!  That's more times in 1 week than I was able to do in my whole time in the Forest of Dean!  Some of them were just nice people who wanted to talk - one guy let us in just because we were American, which was pretty weird, but we were able to teach most of the people who let us in their homes.  The lessons went quite well so it will be exciting to see how these people progress. I was also on exchanges this week with Elder Kelleher, my MTC companion, and that was pretty cool!

I think the biggest difference between the Forest and here is how close everything is.  The Forest consisted of lots of little towns spread out, but here it is pretty much just one city.  I think I miss the scenery of the Forest the most, and also all of the weird stuff you would see on the country roads. 

There has been some weird stuff going on in England though.  First off, KFC is having a chicken shortage.  That is a big issue over here.  I don't know how on earth a restaurant that sells only chicken has a chicken shortage, but KFC is massive over here and it's quite a problem.  People aren't happy!

It sounds like the snow decided to come late for both of us this season.  You guys are getting a lot more , but I dare say that it is much colder over here.  There was a storm that came from Siberia and whoa buddy, that was a tough one!  It was nicknamed "The Beast From the East".  I saw a newspaper saying it was the worst storm in 30 years, but people were saying it was the worst in 50 years.  I think it was the worst ever!  It snowed nonstop for 2 days which wouldn't bother me usually, but Siberia can whip up some reeeeaaaalllly cold wind!  The humidity here just tears you apart as well, so it was a pretty tough week.  President Leppard even made us go home early for a few days, and nobody in the mission could bike or drive for several days as well.  It was pretty crazy!

I am enjoying being on a bike more than I expected.  It's nice to get some exercise, be outside and have some occasional sunshine.  I do miss good old Paul, but Dorleen is holding up quite well.  I miss the Utah roads!  They are so good!  The roads here are absolutely awful and when they come around to fix them they do the worst job.  Not so big of a deal now that I'm not in the car, but holy cow!  They are so bad.  I will never complain about the constant construction on Utah roads again.  At least not for awhile.

This week I broke my bed!  The mission beds are notoriously trashy, and I have yet to visit a flat that doesn't have at least one bed that has been broken.  But anyway, I was going to put on my socks so I sat down on my bed and then CRACK!  One of the sideboards snapped straight in half.  Funny thing is that the same thing happened to Elder Jones a few days earlier and the same thing has happened to the other side of my bed but somebody fixed it.  Well, we went out for the day and forgot about it so when we went home that night I slept on it and broke it more.  All the supporting beams across the bottom detached on at least one side and we have since torn the whole frame apart and used some random adhesive we found in the flat to try to fix it because we don't have any screws or nails.  Hopefully it works, but it's a long shot.

Well, we're off the KFC for lunch, so pray that the chicken shortage isn't too bad!  BTW, it is way better over here than in the States.  Burger King is as well.

Love you all!

-Elder Lott

A snowman!

The initial crack

What we saw last night