DUSTON WEEK 90 OR SOMETHING...... (actually Week 21)

Hello!  I've been really bad at weekly email.  I can't even remember what has happened since my last email and I can't remember if I sent one last week either.  I know I thought about it.....

Anyway, I'm in Duston for another transfer!  That's exciting, I've really liked it here and it's been good fun!  The ward is cool and I like the area so I'm not mad at all.

We had Zone Conference this week and that was good as always.  President Hughes is a total savage so listening to him speak is a party ten times out of ten.  Also, Elder Staheli is the new Assistant so I'll get to go on exchanges with him next week, which will be fun!  See how much things have changed over the last 13 months!

Something great...Jamie got BAPTIZED!!!  He will be good for the Cannock Branch.  He was the first baptism in 4 years or so.  It is a good branch with so many good people. 

Mom, you asked what we do on P Day.  It is usually spent at Kettering with the District and we usually play some games with everybody.  Today we played Spicy Uno and there were some bitter feelings at the end. haha  But we're all good friends and  it's a good time, our District is really great!   We have 3 Americans (2 from Utah, 1 from Arizona), a Scottish Sister, an Italian Elder, and a German Elder too.  It's a fun group!  We usually  need to drive a fair bit as well, which would give me a great opportunity to email, but I get car sick if I look at a screen for too long now, which is a pain.  Preparation days seem to be seconds long (unless we're shopping like today, then 45 minutes feels like 90) and weeks feel like days now.  It's pretty bizarre! 

Thanks for the mac n cheese for my birthday.  It is really good but wow I forgot how heavy it is.  haha.   It's so good!  We love it, but it is like a brick in our stomachs afterward.  And the Chick-fil-A sauce!!!  We went to KFC and I ate about 5 packets of it there.

There isn't a ton happening with the missionary work right now.  We have a few people who we have taught a few times but it is incredibly difficult to find someone who will actually show up to the appointment we have made with them or who wants to meet more than once or twice.  That's the main struggle.  We get a lot of phone numbers and addresses and we talk to a lot of people, but very rarely does it go beyond that.  Kind of frustrating, but we'll just keep doing it and see what happens.

And yeah, the Captain America picture!  HAHA!  A recent YSA convert made it.  Pretty funny.

I'll send along some pictures  Love you all!

Exchanges

Some members from Kettering came and took me out to dinner for my birthday!

(on Exchange with Elder Bluth)

DUSTON WEEK #18

Hello all!  This was a very fast week!  They are all fast now though, so I don't know why I even say that anymore.

We taught Christina this week and that was good.  We are passing her off to the Sisters now though, so that is kind of sad.

My birthday was good too!  A huge thank you to all of the people who wrote and sent me birthday wishes.  I'm sorry I haven't responded to many of you yet, but today was crazy and I haven't had any time at all.  And, we have an early dinner appointment so P Day is extra short today.

It has been a good week though!  Love you all and I hope this week is good!

-Elder Lott

Happy 20th Birthday Zach!

This sweet little bug is now a 20 year old who I absolutely adore and miss like crazy today.
Happy Birthday Zach!  I love you and am so proud of you!

2002

2019

DUSTON WEEK #17

Hello All!!!

New Year's Eve was good.  Elder Waterbohr and I bought some bottles with corks so we could pop them open to bring in the New Year.  We celebrated at like 8:00 PM though because we needed to be in early and then we went to bed and got some extra sleep, so that wasn't bad at all!

Missionary work isn't too busy right now because of the holidays, but hopefully we'll be able to pick it up and get things moving again.  Nancy is still doing well and hopefully she starts attending church more frequently now that it is shorter and in the morning.  She is so good and would be a great member and she's so close.  We're probably going to hand Christine over to the Sister missionaries soon. 

But here's some exciting news!  I heard from the Zone Leaders over Cannock that Jamie is on a baptismal date!  I really hope that he does get baptized.  He's such a good buy and he would be able to help the church in Cannock a lot.

It is kind of crazy that I've been over here in England for all of 2018.  I remember thinking about that before my mission and realizing that I will seriously have no idea what is going on and what has gone on in the world for an entire year.  The only current event I can even think of was the fire in California and I only know about that because one of the Elders I serve with, Elder Bluth, is from California.

Speaking of Elder Bluth, he knows Lucas Reynolds!  I was pulling up a video at a meeting on Saturday and Elder Bluth saw that I had the 6 Brothers video downloaded where Lucas in the thumbnail image and he said, "I know that guy!"  He said that Lucas was on vacation at the Bluth's beach house or something like that and Elder Bluth got to know him a bit there.  Small world.

Two hour church was so fast!  I felt like I was there for no time at all.  Granted we were running back and forth between Sunday School and Primary, so we were pretty busy.  Duston ward has moved to the morning and Northampton has moved to the afternoon, all of that combined really threw off my Sunday schedule yesterday.  Also, we can't study Come, Follow Me unless we have members invite us over to study it with them.  We will just let as many members as possible know about that so we get invited over to places.

As for the license, I forgot to mention that my test was on the 2nd and I passed!  So I am now a full-on, legal British driver.  My license doesn't come through until the 20th or so but I can drive on my test certificate until then.  I really missed driving so I'm glad to be back behind the wheel.

To answer your question Mom, we haven't had any snow yet, but I think it is supposed to snow at some point.  February and March are usually the coldest months over here though, and the cold wind has started lately.  It is about to get really cold.

Have a great weekend everyone!

-Elder Lott

Exchange with Elder Ireland

DLC

The District!

 

God's Plan for Us

One thing I am very grateful for is to understand my place in God's plan!  Knowing who I am, why I am here, and what I am supposed to do has brought me peace and direction in this life.  As a missionary, I help other people find the answers to these questions.  Message me to find out more!

DUSTON WEEK #16

Hi Everyone!

First off, CONGRATULATIONS to Sarah and Sebastian on their wedding this past week!  I wish I could have been there but I am very happy to hear that your day was so good.  It sounds like it was a really great time and the pictures look really good as well.  Everybody seems really happy in them and they all look great.

It was really good to talk to all of you on Christmas!  I have been missing everybody a lot lately and it was nice to see everyone. 

All of the changes in church meetings will be exciting!  I'm sure there will be some growing pains over the next few month, but I'm sure everybody will figure it out before too long.  At least I hope so!

As always, I'm sad I missed out on all of the fun.  I'm happy for you Sarah and Sebastian.

Have a wonderful week everybody!  And HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

-Elder Lott

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! 2018

OUR CHRISTMAS JOY!!!

December 25, 2018

DUSTON WEEK #15

Hi Everyone!

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas tomorrow!

I'll be calling home tomorrow at 4:30 pm here.  I think it's 9:30 in Utah.  I won't write a longer email today become we have loads to do and not much time.  I'll talk to you tomorrow!!!

Love you!


Photos from our phone call with Zach on Christmas Day 2018

DUSTIN WEEK #14

Hello All!

We've had a good week!  Not much has happened, but we've taught Nancy and Christina, so that's been nice!  We also had a Zone Preparation Day today which was a lot of fun!  We have so many good missionaries in the Zone and it's a lot of fun to be with them.

On a sadder note, I didn't pass my practical driving test.  Hurrah for second chances though! I was close but made one mistake one too many times so no luck.  I didn't check my blind spots enough for the English.  I'll get some more training and keep my head on a swivel more fully next time!

We have Zone Conference this week so that'll be good!

A cool scripture I read this week is D&C 124:49 and it says,

   Verily, verily, I say unto you, that when I give a commandment to any of the sons of men to do a work unto my name, and those sons of men go with all their might and with all they have to perform that work, and cease not their diligence, and their enemies come upon them and hinder them from performing that work, behold, it behooveth me to require that work no more at the hands of those sons of men, but to accept of their offerings.

I really like that scripture because it's a principle we hear a lot about in the church from a person's point of view so I thought i was cool to hear God's point of view on it.

Love you all!

-Elder Lott

December District Leadership Conference

Another one

DUSTON WEEK #13

The biggest things that happened this week were Christina and Nancy. We taught Christina yesterday after church and we had a really good lesson with her.  She has a lot of the apostasy Christian beliefs very firmly rooted in her mind, but she is also willing to listen to us.  When we taught her about the Book of Mormon she looked at us like we were silly for asking her if it was important that she knew if it was true or not, so that was good!  she's busy with Uni for the next few days though, so we'll try to teach her over Facebook or something like that!  We are meeting with Nancy this Thursday, which is good.  We had quite a lull in our meetings with her so it'll be really good to get back to that and help her progress again!

My new companion Elder Waterbohr is really good!  He's a super solid missionary and a really good guy.  He speaks very good English as he learned it in school (most of the people in Germany do) and has spoken it for many years.  He has been a great companion so far.  I'm just adjusting back to not having a North American companion with all the little cultural differences!  All is well though.

I take the driving part of my license test tomorrow!  I initially had to book it for the 17th of January but some closer days opened up.  Please pray for me! Fewer than half the people pass their first driving test over here.  While I'm confident in my driving abilities, I am a little nervous and I really don't want to take it again. haha.  I'm not super nervous, but some prayers never hurt!

No details yet on the Christmas call.

Also, we had MLC on Friday, but that's about it!

I hope everyone has a great week.

-Elder Lott
#lighttheworld

The best Christmas lights I've seen this year

MLC Meeting December 2018

A creepy ukulele in the Kettering flat

DUSTON WEEK #12

Hello All!

A good week and transfer this has been!  I'll be staying in Duston for the next 7 weeks and I'll be getting a new companion, Elder Waterbohr from Germany!  He has only been out for 2 transfers so I'm follow up training him, which will be exciting.  I am sad to see Elder Tollestrup go, but I'm really excited for the new transfer.  I'm also a little sad because Elder Tollestrup is going to Cardiff, which is the area I wanted to go to next.  But if he's there then the chances of me going there next greatly drop.  We shall see though!

This week we had Elder McLennan, one of our Office Elders, in the Zone visiting all of the District Councils to give a presentation so we spent a couple of day with him and drove him around everywhere he needed to go.  It was so much fun haha.  I love that guy so much.  He's from Scotland and he is absolutely hilarious.

We also found a couple of pretty promising people this week, which is nice!  One, named Christina, was like really happy when we said we were missionaries and I didn't know how to react.  That has never happened to me before lol.  She's really cool though!  Kinda pretty sure we will baptize her!

Elder Tollestrup and I were in Birmingham for a day this week for a doctor appointment.  Elder Tollestrup has a subfluxating shoulder which means it partially dislocates when he moves it.  It's pretty exciting to watch.

We're still working with Nancy.  Please keep her in your prayers.  Hopefullly we can get a ccouple of things moving along so she will be able to be baptized soon.  We shall see!

Well, I think that's pretty much it!  I can't believe I've been in this area for 2 transfers!  It feels like I"ve been here for a month or so.  I'm excited for more time here!

A scripture I liked this week is 3 Nephi 9:13.

13. O all ye that are spared because ye were more righteous than they, will ye not now return unto me, and repent of your sins, and be converted, that I may heal you?

I really like that because it explains the attitude Christ has when we make a mistake!  He wants us to return so He can heal us,  He never will push us away.  The only thing between us and Christ is ourselves.

Have a wonderful week!  Love you all!

-Elder Lott

Northampton Missionaries!

Northampton District Council with Elders Davey and Vuki

Ramsey District Council

Milton Keynes District Council

Elder McLennan snoozing

I tried to draw Elder Tollestrup

Elder Tollestrup drew me