NUNEATON WARD

It's official...the ward loves us!  People are giving us food even when we aren't over for dinner and it's brilliant!  We have people going to Costco and we have people bring us food on Sunday to take home plus we get fed pretty much every day.  Hinckley has turned into a bounteous area! 

We also visited a super cool family this week and it was so much fun!  We got along great and it was a party.  Cool thing is, when we got to their street we couldn't find the house and we were about to give up when we heard somebody say, "Who are you crazy people?"  That was a fair sign the members saw us.  After they let us in they told us that the husband works nights and sleeps during the day but for some reason he woke up and looked out the window right as we walked by.  So just know that if you wake up early it might be the Spirit.  We got to know them a little bit and then shared a spiritual thought which inspired a really good discussion.  It was a good day!

Aside from that, this week wasn't too memorable.  We had our final interviews with President Leppard.  We have one more Zone Conference and then he goes home, which is pretty crazy.  I'm excited to see what it is like to have a green Mission President though haha.  We are also coming up to the end of Elder Raicevic's training so it is likely I'll be leaving Hinckley after the next couple of weeks.  It is strange realizing I've been here for as long as I have been, and that I'm probably going to be packing up and going somewhere totally new before long.  I'll just try to enjoy the time I have left here.

I love you all and hope that this week is fun!  Keep being cool and doing yo thang!

-Elder Lott

We found a cool park!

Another park pic

Waiting for the train

A member owns a super posh restaurant and let us eat there

1st Class

Hi Y'all!

A good week we had here in Hinckley!  The first half of the week was pretty boring, but the last half was fun!

On Thursday we had District Meeting and then I had an exchange with the Chelmsley Wood Elders who were put in our District at the beginning of this transfer.  I went to Chelmslely Wood with Elder Tinker, a British lad from Kent, which is South London.  We had a really good time and we taught a guy they baptised last transfer,  We watched the Joseph Smith movie and I love it.  It is incredible all that Joseph Smith did amidst all his trials.  Good dude.

On Saturday we went to our Bishop's house in the afternoon and helped him sort his back garden.  We painted the deck, removed a pole that was cemented into the ground, and power washed some tiles.  It was a big job and we were there for a long time, but it was the royal wedding that day so people were extra not bothered by us.  Also, he fed us so I'd say it was definitely worth it.  Bishop is a lad as well so it was loads of fun.  We also took some shots on a netball hoop his wife practices on and it's blooming hard.  It's like a foot higher than basketball and there's no backboard.  I definitely sent a ball or two over the fence into the neighbor's yard.

As for the Royal Wedding, there wasn't too much about it where we are.  I looked around for things to take photos with, but aside from a few magazine covers there wasn't much.  No cardboard cut outs or anything like that.

It's incredible to think that Mrs. McDonald and Mrs. Humphries are both retiring.  They were both such incredible teachers.  It's so crazy to think it has been that long since Silver Mesa days.  It definitely hasn't been 7, almost 8 years.  There's no way.

Yesterday we went to a Church of England chapel because one of our members set up a Nurse Appreciation Celebration with their congregation.  It was a fun and interesting day.  We listened to a gospel choir, got preached to by a Vicar, and said group prayers.  It was fun to see how other churches worship but I think I like the way we do it more.

It was great to hear that the Jordan River Temple has been rededicated.  It is one of my favorite temples and I'm looking forward to going through it when I am home.

Spiritual Thought:
Enos 1:17
     And I, Enos, knew it would be according to the covenant which he had made; therefore my soul did rest.

This verse is a good reminder that the Lord always keeps his promises.  It is up to us to keep our end of them and if we do that, we will receive all the blessings He has promised.

I love you guys!  Keep being cool!

-Elder Lott

Church of England

A beautiful view

A panoramic gone wrong

The strangest door knocker I've seen yet!

My lunch today! 

Hi Everyone!  It was so good to talk to you all yesterday!  It is so great to see everyone's faces and hear your voices.

It has been a pretty good week over here on this side of town.  The first part of the week was pretty slow but then stuff got exciting on Thursday after District Meeting.  We did some District finding in the Nuneaton Town Center and that was good, but then Elder Raicevic and I lost track of time had had to hustle to the train station.  Luckily we got there right as the train was about to pull away so we got on.  Funny thing is though, the train only stops in Hinckley once an hour and on this particular day the train that doesn't stop in Hinckley was delayed by about 30 minutes before the other train which would stop in Hinckley.  Because we didn't know that we thought we were on the right train....but we were very wrong.  We blew straight through Hinckley,, passed Narborough, cruised by South Wigston, and eventually arrived in Leicester, the neighboring zone.  We hopped on the next train back as fast as we could and luckily we were back in the district in about 25 minutes and then we were able to safely make it back to Hinckley in time for our DA!  Whew!

We also had Mid Trainers meeting in Birmingham for the greenies who are halfway through training now!  It was fun to see everybody and spend some time with the other missionaries.

Highlight of the week though was TALKING TO MY FAMILY!!!  It was awesome to see everybody's face and hear their voices.  Only being able to email is kind of tough, but it makes the Skype clls that much better!  Happpy Mother's Day Mom!  Thanks for being such a wonderful mom!

As a thought, I would like to leave a quote that Sister Leppard put in an email once.  I'm sure most of you have heard it, but it's a really good one.
     "When the going gets tough, the tough get going."

Love you all and hope this week is stellar!  Keep being awesome!

-Elder Lott

2018 Mother's Day Call

with Elder Raicevic on Mother's Day 2018

Mid Trainers Meeting

I ran into Elder Orr at Training

A new member of the squad!

Barbecue with the Iliffe family

HELLO EVERYBODY! HERE WE ARE AGAIN!

This week was pretty mellow, but had some fun stuff happen.  We had Zone Conference on Tuesday where we got some nifty  new smartphones so that's cool!  It's nice to have it but still feels weird having a smartphone as a missionary.  I also went on an exchange in Stratford Upon Avon again with Elder Kjar and it was really fun!  He's a lad and I wish i had gotten a picture but forgot, so I'll get one next time.

Something else this week that was pretty crazy was we were walking home when somebody stopped us #rare and it turned out to be a former investigator.  We spoke for a little while and then he gave us his number and told us where he lives and then said to come by on Saturday mornings!  It was so cool!  My jaw is a little bruised from dropping to the pavement, but sometimes these things happen.

Wow!  I know I usually say it sounds like you had an exciting week, but this week blew all the past exciting weeks right out of the water!  Nor was it exciting in the same way!  I am happy to hear that you are doing well though Mom.

On a side note, today was a bank holiday (pretty much a national holiday) so everybody had work off and some of the Elders Quorum got together to play basketball.  It was a lot of fun and I'm already really achy so the next few days might be rough haha!

I now know when I'll be able to Skype!  It will be 3:00 PM over here which I believe is 8:00 AM for you guys.  We only have 40 minutes for this call.  I am really excited to see you guys!

This week should be good!  As all other weeks are!  Love you all and hope something cool happens before we are here again!

-Elder Lott

My Boy!

I found Elder Dodds and Elder Bassett!

Me ruining Elder Murray's fancy picture

The phone has filters and they were really entertaining!

#missionary life

AYYYY

Well to be honest this wasn't a thrilling week haha.  Our day typically consists of language study, the first 12 weeks training program, companionship study, and then loads of finding.  That is what it has been all week for the most part.  We did have a brief discussion with a guy who is studying to be a minister and that was pretty cool, but that's pretty much all that has happened since the last email.  Sorry mom, I don't have any pictures either.  I'll leave you with a great spiritual thought though!

President Nelson said this is in our last General Conference:
"The most important truth the Holy Ghost will ever witness to you is that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.  He lives!"  I have come to gain a testimony of that and I agree with President Nelson when he says it is the most important witness we can receive.  Coming to know that for myself has influenced me more than anything else in my life.  If you don't know for yourself, then I encourage you to do what you need to in order to gain that knowledge!

Have a wonderful week!

-Elder Lott

Hi Everyone!

We've had a sold couple of weeks out here in England!  Some of the highlights include a special UK broadcast from President Nelson and Elder Holland, which was really cool!  It was nice to see them outside of General Conference in a less formal environment!  We also had Coventry Stake Conference with Area 70 Elder Turnicliffe, which was good as well.  A few exchanges have happened but I've stayed in Hinckley for all of them so my world has been pretty small lately. lol

The weather here has been incredible this week, by far the nicest it has been since I got here.  It got warm enough to actually say it was hot!  Not a cloud in the sky and I even got a little red on my arms!  It was only like 65 degrees but it felt like 85!  It was nice, but I am also ready for it to cool down a little bit.  This week is supposed to be much cooler thank goodness!

All is well with Elder R!  He is really great and it doesn't even feel like I'm training him most of the time.  He has a lot more maturity and experience than I did at the beginning of my mission.  I was expecting to get a Utah kid who was super sheltered or something, but I got a 22 year old Serbian convert who worked in Dubai for a year.  He is pretty awesome!  My District is good as well.  There is only one other companionship, Elder Kelleher (my MTC comp) and Elder Murray.  We get along well and they are some really good guys!

Fun little story for you....I got my hair cut today and the guy who did it was really nice but a little different.  He was telling us about how he died 3 times, believes the earth is flat, and the firmament is a domed structure over the earth that the stars and planets are projected onto.  Also, UFOs are actual evil spirits.  It took him about 50 minutes to cut my hair because he kept stopping to talk to us.  It was only £5 though so I can't complain too much I guess.

Keep being awesome!  Love y'all!

Elder Lott

Exchange with Elder Terry

District Finding in Banbury 

A cool street we found!

A random text we got this week from Rome

15 April 2018

Hello!  Just a heads up - I am out of time so this won't be a long email.

We were able to watch President Nelson's broadcast.  There was a Missionary Only broadcast that we watched in our District Meeting and then we went to the General Membership Broadcast later that night at the Stake Center.  It was an incredible broadcast and it was really cool to see President Nelson and Elder Holland in a less formal atmosphere.  They are incredible men and they gave some outstanding messages.  It was a day to remember!  President Nelson is such a powerful Prophet.  I don't really remember President Hinckley and most of my memories of President Monson are of him with poor health and toward to latter years, but President Nelson seems to have something different going on.  He's pretty impressive.

Elder Raicevic is doing well so far.  He is a really good guy.  I have had to be a little more patient, but that's kind of inevitable.  He's new and foreign so there's a lot for him to get used to.  We get along well and I'm grateful for that!

It makes me happy knowing you still email the Geldenhuys.  Sigmund and Bernadette are some of the best people I've ever met and I miss them a lot!  The whole Branch in the Forest is pretty awesome, and they are definitely up at the top of the list.  Please give them my best.

Believe it or not Dad, I'm sad I can't be there to mow the lawn this year!  I actually really do miss mowing now.  It was a good way to make some money and to have some time alone.  Too bad I'm getting back in the Fall or I would gladly mow it over the summer for you.  Maybe we will be able to squeeze a couple in before the lawn stops growing.

It will be fun for you all to see Grandma and Grandpa this week.  Give them a hug and 3 kisses for me lol.

Love you all and hope this week is stellar!

-Elder Lott

Elder Lott and Elder Raičević

I HAVE A SON!

Hello Hello all friends and family!  This has been, per usual, an exciting week!  We have a little something extra this time around though!  I have my greenie!!!  His name is Elder David Raecivic (pronounced Raychivich) and he is from Belgrade, Serbia!  He is a total stud as well.  He has a super hardcore accent that sounds really Russian so it's pretty intense. It has been interesting having a foreign companion though because I have needed to totally adjust my speaking to fit his vocabulary.  He learned some English in school and then more after he was baptised because he was around American missionaries a lot.  He also worked in Dubai for a little while before his mission in a British hotel so he spoke English there. His English is good enough that they let him out of the MTC 2 weeks early!  His accent is hard to understand sometimes though because Serbian and English are like polar opposites in how things are pronounced and the noises that your mouth makes.  He can't make the "th" noise, for example, and if a word ends with "ed", such as "disguised", he pronounces the "ed" at the end (disguise-ed) so sometimes you need to really focus to understand him.  I can't complain much though because he is willing to be obedient and work hard.  The rest will come with time.  He's a good dude! 

Elder Orr and I trained to the mission home on Tuesday and Elder Orr got Elder Stiggson who is a Swedish stud.  They will be serving in Newport Gwent, which is in the Cardiff Stake in Wales. It was an exciting day!  It is kind of fun being on the other side of a new missionary's training now too  haha.  I can look back and think about how I was there just a few months ago and I remember all the dumb stuff I did so it is good fun!  I don't have a picture with him yet but I will get one for next week!

Elder Raecivic's family's conversion story is pretty cool.  His Father stopped the missionaries on the street about 5 years ago because he thought one of them was his friend.  After realizing that it wasn't him, he still invited them around just to be nice.  When they came by, he listened and he went to church about once a month, but the rest of the family was pretty uninterested.  This went on for a year and then they lost contact because of a transfer.  A year after that, Elder Raicevic's dad had surgery because of some gall stones and minutes after he woke up the missionaries called him.  He took that as a sign because he thought the gall stones were going to kill him.  The missionaries came by on June 21, 2014 and got the entire family (parents and 3 boys) to go to church and then on July 19, 2014, all except their oldest son were baptised.  The church is barely breathing in the Adriatic missions.  In Serbia there are 300 members and in Belgrade there are 45 members compared to 3 million residents.  Elder Raicevic is one of 6 Serbian missionaries in the world.  His brother is serving right now in the Leeds Mission!

We had the rainiest day I have yet seen on Wednesday, and holy cow it was tipping it!  We were soaked all the way through so that was a good first day for Elder Raicevic.  Then the weather got super nice the next couple of days!  We helped the Nuneaton Elders with some service this week too.  We had to help a lady move because she was being evicted and that was an interesting experience. It was pretty stressful because it had been put off for much too long so we needed to haul butt through all of her stuff.    Always good to help somebody out though!

The photos from the trip to California looked great and I am jealous of all the sunshine!  I have nearly finished my conversion to vampire so before long I will start to smoke a little bit if prolonged exposure to the sunshine occurs.  And BTW,  I miss Chick-fil-A with a fiery and burning passion.  It was the perfect meal for Sunset Blvd.

My dominance at the ping pong table has continued, by the way.  Nobody in the District can stop me so that's neat too.

Well, that's about all for this week!  It was good fun and full of exciting stuff!  For a spiritual thought I would like to quote President Monson in his final General Conference address about the Book of Mormon.
   "My dear associates in the work of the Lord, I implore each of us to prayerfully study and ponder the Book of Mormon each day.  As we do so, we will be in a position to hear the voice of the Spirit, to resist temptation, to overcome doubt and fear, and to receive heaven's help in our lives."

I hope you all have an incredible week!  Do something fun!

-Elder Lott

Here you go Mom!

April 3, 2018

Elder Lott and Elder Orr

Picking up our Boys!

BEST WEEK YET!

Hello my dudes!  This week was crazy but so much fun!  I don't have my greenie yet because the MTC transfer line up is weird this time around so this week I was with Elder Orr.  He is a true American through and through!  He is from Oklahoma and he is such a beast!  We have had such a fun week but sadly haven't been able to get too much done because we have just about everywhere except our area this week it feels like!

Elder Orr came to Hickley on Tuesday and then on Wednesday we had to go to Birmingham for our pre-training meeting where President Leppard gave us the run down and what it is we are supposed to be doing and how to do it right.  That was exciting stuff!  We still don't know anything about our greenies but we will find out all about them tomorrow.

On Thursday we were in Coventry for District Meeting and interviews with President and those were good fun as well.  It was just such a busy week and we were all over the place so it went by really quickly.  I will let you all know about the new lad coming into the mission next week.

Mom, you asked about when we watch General Conference over here.  We watched Saturday morning at 5:00 pm Saturday night, Priesthood session on Sunday morning, Saturday afternoon on Sunday at 3:00 pm.  The members home we watched at decided to take a break so we didn't get to watch any of the Sunday sessions yet - we'll watch or read those at another time.  I watched the announcement about Priesthood but missed the Ministering one.  It will be interested to see how it all works out.

I hope you all have fun in California.  Tell the Vandermarks I say hello!  That's really cool about Parker's call - Cebu!  It's crazy to me that he has already gotten his call.  For some reason he seems like he's still another 1 or 2 years off.  It's an exciting time for him for sure!

Have a great week!  Love you guys!

-Elder Lott

with Elder Orr

Conference Naps

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