January 10th—January 15th: An Update on our Investigators

Hello Everyone! 

I hope that everyone had a great week! I believe that this is the first or second week of school for everyone? Lucky you. School has started back up here so its good to have the crazy teenagers back off the streets. This week the weather has been pretty bad for this area, high winds and just not very nice. Friday the wind was crazy, then it started to hail. It was a wonderful day of beautiful weather. Wales is so pretty though the mountains on one side and the ocean on the other. It's just great.

The people that we are working with:

Christina is doing well—Josh is really a great influence on her. He gets her to read and to come to youth and everything. Josh is really self motivated, it helps a lot.

Emma—we haven't seen all week.  She is really hard to meet with. She leaves early in the morning and gets home late at night. We have been trying to keep contact with her via text and call but that is a challenge sometimes as well. We try though. She is really enjoying the Book of  Mormon and prayer. She says that she feels great. We would love to date her for baptism but we can't ever seem to meet with her. She didn't make it to church on Sunday and we haven't been able to get ahold of her. Hope all is alright! 

We taught a man named Boo again this week. He is a bit of a philosopher, so we struggle to really go anywhere with him but he likes what we teach and what we believe. He is a really nice man, but also very busy so the struggle is once again meeting with him. 

The newest person that we have right now is a lady named Patricia and her son Antony. Patricia is in her early sixties, from Liverpool and been living here for about a year. She is super nice, not really overly keen on the gospel but enjoys having us come around and talk to her and Antony.  They are both really nice people.  

So transfers are the end of the month. I don't know if I will stay or go. I don't think that me and Elder Cossa will stay together. It's been loads of fun to serve with him but I'm not sure that they will have us both stay, might not be good for the area. We were told by one of the members that has been here for about a year that we are the most successful missionaries they had seen here, so that was a great thing to hear.  It's really slow here, we don't find many new people to teach—maybe three in a really good week. We didn't find any this week but the people that we are working with are slow and steady progressing. 

We went on exchanges this week with the elders from Rhyl. I got to go with Elder Cepeda who is from Dublin, Ireland.  I kept trying my horrible impression of an Irish man and it was good fun. I think that if anything my American accent has gotten stronger whilst I've been here.  I'm going to come home sounding Texan not English ahaha.

Love ya all.

Elder Tarbet

Caelitus Mihi Vires

My Strength is from Heaven

January 9th: A Tour Through Wales

The longest name in the world, and translation. 

Welsh names almost always mean something. 

A picture drawn by a Mr. Adolf Hitler, which he kindly donated to the museum.

Caernarfon

The man that took us a round is a member of 

this regiment, "23rd royal Welsh"

"Billy", the demoted goat

Caernarfon castle 

The place where Charles was made Prince of Wales

Queens Gate where the King Edward presented his son as Prince of Wales, 

"He doesnt speak a word of English!" 

Well he didn't speak a word of Welsh either, he was about 4 months old. 

January 2nd—January 8th: New Changes in the Mission

Hey 

  Sorry, today a man is going to take us on a tour of northern Wales, I will hopefully have time to send a bit more later but if not know that I love you all and hope that all is well. In brief summery of the week, we had interviews with President; we had exchanges (I went with Elder Cowdry down to Porthmadog); we had a vision meeting for the new year. Emma has been calling us most days and came to church today which was great.  We taught those girls that referred themselves a few weeks ago finally. We have a new mission schedule as well. Major changes are planning is now in the morning, comp study is now in the day sometime. Pday now starts at 8. A few other things but those are the biggest ones, we are just kinda trailing it and will get the full thing the end of the month from the missionary committee. 

Love ya 

Elder Tarbet

Caelitus Mihi Vires 

My Strength is from Heaven

December 25th—January 1st: A Week of Walking

First off Happy New Year from across the pond!
   Right so this week has been pretty chaotic because of the holidays. Monday was Boxing Day and so no busses ran. Tuesday was the bank holiday and so only a few busses ran. Friday was a bank holiday and so only a few busses ran. Saturday was a holiday and so only a few busses ran. Sunday was a holiday and so no busses ran. Today is a holiday so only a few busses run. Moral of the story—we have done a lot of walking this week!
   Wednesday we had zone meeting in Rhyl, which was really good.  The zone leaders are really, really good this transfer—one from Hawaii and the other from Australia. After the meeting, we went on exchanges with the Elders in Rhyl and had a good time.  We found a couple of people to teach as well as had a super fun dinner appointment with a young family. They had us play a game called "mr and mrs," so basically it's a game for couples to see how well they know each other. So me and Elder Edwards played it and killed it. We got 10/12 after being together less than 6 hours. We then challenged the married couple and they got 7/12. The other Elders had done it the day before and got 8/12 to the couples 10/12, so we are the champs hahaha.
    Thursday we tried to go and see Emma but we hadn't been able to confirm her appointment so we just took our chances and got it wrong. We got there and she wasn't prepared and so we got sent back home.  Oops. The next morning she called and I was expecting to get told off, which would be totally fair, but she actually wanted to tell us that she had been reading the Book of Mormon and praying. She was so excited, it was the best! She had found an answer to one of her questions and then found that when she really spoke to God, that was when she felt like she was getting something back. She found it to be her new stress management program. Praying for 20 min. Nothing like being shown up by your investigator haha. She was so excited, she asked us to give her a passage to read so we did, she called that evening to talk about it and ask for another. Wow.
    I have realized this week how much I am learning from those that we are teaching.  I'm glad to get to work with them. They teach me a lot and show me things I didn't even know.  I also enjoy watching the changes that take place as our investigators learn and how they become such good examples to those around them.  I wish they could see themselves from our perspective!
    That's been about our week, we watched a few movies over the holidays that I would totally recommend(hadn't seen them before): Freetown is brilliant, Best Two Years was so funny, and then we played a game called Pandemic, which is so much fun. It's good because you are playing against the game and not against each other (would help our family's competitive spirit).

Well love ya lots and hope you have a great week!

Elder Tarbet
Caelitus Mihi Vires
My Strength is from Heaven

Sent from my iPad

December 25th: Skyping Pictures!

December 19th—December 24th: A Busy Week—Sealings in the Temple and Traveling Through Wales

Hi, 

   This week has been great—really busy but also really crazy fun! On Thursday, we had our mission Christmas party and got to do a few hours in the temple.   I got to do baptisms, initiatories and sealings. That was incredible! I've never done sealings before but its neat to see the thing that we want people that we teach to finally reach. 

   Right so this week we taught Emma. She wasn't feeling up to being taught much so we just talked and Paul (a member) shared his testimony of the Atonement.  It was very powerful, if it didn't help her it definitely helped me.   We also got to teach about the plan of salvation and fasting and about receiving answers (3 nephi 11) this week.  And we met a really great family that goes to a different ward. She is super nice and has a great testimony despite massive challenges in her life—maybe because of those.

  We met an ex-member who is now Presbyterian and doesn't like the church, she invited us to dinner but her husband who is still a member but less active called and canceled it, which was okay. 

   Not sure what else is going on, we spent a long time traveling to and from Chorley—5 hours on public transport each way.  Wednesday and Thursday were long days of traveling. We left at 6 Wednesday night, spent the night and finished our travel in the morning. Then Thursday we left at 6 from Chorley and got home at 11:30. The Elders that live in Porthmadog had to spend the night because they would have gotten home at 8 the next morning if they had tried to continue on haha. 

Traveling in Wales isn't easy.

Love ya all!

Elder Tarbet

Caelitus Mihi Vires

My Strength is from Heaven