July 28--New Transfer Day!

Hi, It's a new transfer day! I'm staying in Brixton with Elder Muller! Also, our good friends friends from the Wandsworth area, Elders O'Faolin and Evans are staying as well! I'm very excited about it! And Elder Evans is our new District leader and it's his last transfer so this will be fun for all of us! :) Well, I'm still doing good and l'll try and think of something good to write for this letter....

 

Ok, so our ward is not that big. Technically, we have about 300 members or something, but only about 30-50 of them are active. We had Ward conference this last sunday, and the stake president rebuked the ward, haha! It was so weird and a bit scary, but he basically told them they had to step up their game to keep this ward surviving and to help the missionaries out as much as possible. So that's good. :) Elder Muller and I are going around the ward list and visiting less active members, and some haven't been to church for ages! This one woman hadn't been for like 10 years or something! So we're inviting them to come back to church, and hopefully it will work so once we find new people to teach, they'll feel welcome at church. Right now that probably isn't the case as much... So yeah, that's what we're up to now.

 

Dad wanted me to tell a basic day in the life of me as a missionary so here it goes:

6:30- wake up, exercise, shower, eat.

8-10 Study.

Then sometimes we have lunch, sometimes we wait.

Then we go and visit people! Right now we're teaching mostly less active members, but hopefully the ward can start actually doing their home and visiting teaching so we can focus on finding new people who want to know more about or join the church.  But we usually don't spend more than 3 hours a day contacting, because we always try to get over 20 teaches a week, and travelling time takes forever! So we're pretty busy, but it's good.

 

Well, I'll email you again on Monday, so email me before that if possible please! Not just you, mom and dad, but anyone who wants to. :)

 

The pictures I sent are:

1- Our district taking a cheesy smile picture. As of today though, the guy in the back, but not behind me, went home and we now have Elder Rantsha from Botswana and Scotland. I'll explain that later, probably, haha.

 

 

2- This is me and a less active member named Jane. She is Scottish and is one of my favorite people to visit. She has such funny stories, trust me!

 

Ok, I love you guys! Thanks for the support and love you give me, it makes the days better, even though I'm doing pretty well in the first place. Talk to you Monday, bye!

From Elder Boothe--July 19, 2010

Picture 1- Me and a friend from another area, Elder O'Faolin

Picture 2- Me and the Subway guy!!

Picture 3- District photo with one of our Zone leaders, Elder Martins

Picture 4- Elephant and Castle, it's a pretty dodgy place.

Hello, it's been a good week. The last three weeks we have been having a hard time finding new people to teach, but this next week we are going to try some new things, and we're excited about it so hopefully we can find people that actually want to learn, rather than just bothering people who don't. :)

On Wednesday I went on an exchange with another brand new missionary, Elder Olsen. I knew him in the MTC, and i might have sent a picture of him, actually. He's 6'10, so that might narrow it down. He's a really cool guy and we learned a lot on Wednesday. It was kind of cool to both be brand new missionaries, and we taught well together. We taught a lot of cool people, and I'd go more into who and what we taught, but I don't have a lot of time left for this email. But we did teach one family and they really enjoyed what we were talking about, which was family prayer and scripture study. But I don't really have too much time to talk about the other people we taught, sorry.  Just know that I'm doing good! :)

Oh, this is basically the last P-day before transfer day! I won't have a Pday next Monday, it'll be on Thursday. We don't know if we are getting transferred or not yet, and we won't know until the day before, so that's nice. :) My prediction is that both Elder Muller and I will stay, but I'd be fine with whatever happens, of course. I just can't believe I've been out here for so long already! To me it seems to be going fast and slow at the same time. They say "The days seem like weeks, but the weeks seem like days." and that's exactly true! :D

Ok, I have to write my letter to the mission president now, but I'll just end by saying thanks to everyone who has sent me letters! I really don't have the time, even on p-day usually, to write back to everyone. But for those who have sent me mail, thank you very much! I know it's kind of expensive to send mail or packages here, so you don't have to do it very frequently. :) Ok, I guess that's it! Bye!
Elder Boothe

Lost Oyster Card But Getting New Shirts and Delicious Donuts!

Hello, how are you guys? I don't really have much to write about this week. (But I'll probably think of more as I write, so hopefully I'll remember something interesting.)  This week has been good, not really any problems. Let's see if I have an interesting story......

This week I have been doing good. Yesterday was kind of a challenge, but it wasn't anything too terrible. :) Yesterday started off kind of weird. This guy we'd taught a while in the past called and was very emotional and was asking for help because he was confused in his life. We've gone through this many times, and everytime we tell him the same thing, but he doesn't listen. So I was a little upset that I couldn't help him, because he doesn't accept the help when we do give it to him. So I was already in a kind of down mood. Then, the person we were going to pick up for church wasn't at their house. I'm fine if people don't come to church, it's their choice, but I would like it better if they let us know. Then, after that I lost my Oyster card (which is the thing that lets us use all the public transport) so I had to go buy a new one for 22 pounds. But thankfully after that, and after a little prayer, the day got a bit better. We met with some really nice people and they fed us and my companion and I just were in a good mood. Then we had an offical dinner appointment, and the food was delicious. It was Chilean rice and beans or something, and it was so good! So, the day ended well and that was good.

Let's see, later today we aren't planning anything too exciting, just kind of hanging out with the other missionaries. I do need to go buy some short sleeve shirts, because the ones I brought were way too big! The sleeves, the length, everything about them was just way too big, so I'm going to get some today. And there's a place here called Primark that sells good shirts for only £3! (£ is pounds) Also, there's a supermarket type place here called Sainsbury's that sells delicious doughnuts in packs of 5 for only 69p! It's great!

Oh, another thing that happened this past week was Zone Training and we had interviews with President Shamo. That was good because he helped me with some things I was having problems with, such as talking to people on the street. He said that you just have to find what works best for yourself, and that was comforting because now I keep trying to find what works, rather than just being upset that I am rubbish at talking to people. :)

Hmm, well that's about all I have for this week. Sorry. I'm afraid that as weeks go by I'll have less and less to talk about! If you send me letters, I definitely don't have time to write everyone back, sorry. But everyone who has sent me one, thank you! Getting a letter is a good way to start the day. :) Ok, that's about it! Love you guys, thanks for everything. Bye!

(pictures soon, hopefully)

July 5, 2010

First, to explain the Pictures!

1- When we went to Wimbledon, this guy was handing out free toothpaste with this on it. Yeah. :)

2- this was our dinner before we started our fast. Steamed Vegetables, Fried Plantain, and penne pasta with a sauce that I made from scratch that wasn't great, but it tasted good!

3- Elder Muller made Caramalized plantain. It was delicious.

4- A Chinese lady in the church came back from a trip to China, and brought us some chicken wing and a weird chocolate covered snack. they were very weird.

 

 

 

 

Hello, I don't really know what there is to say about this week! I'm forgetting what I wrote last week, and don't have time to go back and read them, so I might be repeating everything. (I might have even said this last week. Haha, I really don't remeember.)

 

Alright, so I'm doing good. No problems here. Last P-day I said we were going to Wimbledon, which is a huge famous tennis tournament, but that didn't really work out. We went there, but then we learned that we'd have to wait in line ALL DAY and wouldn't even get in to watch until it was time for us to head back home! So we just went to a park and played some football (Or soccer, for you Americans. :P). Today, we're going to go to the London Eye! I don't think we'll ride it because it's kind of a waste of money. But it will be cool just to see it! I'll take some good pictures of it, and I'll even try to be in some of the pictures. Sorry that this week's pictures are almost all of food, haha. I was hungry.

 

Well, I really am doing good! I of course think about home sometimes, but I'm not exactly homesick or anything. No offense, but I'd much rather be out here right now. :) I've learned a lot while being out here, that's for sure. One thing that Elder Muller and I read whilst studying in the morning is Romans ummmm, 13? verse 16? I don't know, I don't have my scriptures on m[e] right now. But basically it talks about how loving God and loving your neighbor are basically the two most important commandments. It says if you love your neighbor, then you'll automatically be following most of the ten commandments. Look it up, it says it much better than I can. (Also, I never though I'd be one to quote biblical verse, haha. But it happens a lot out here, since all the Africans love the Bible!)

 

Speaking of Africans, there really are so many out here! In our ward, there are really only about 10% white people. It's so cool, I love meeting all the different people and learn about their culture. In fact, I'm going to try and learn some basic things in some african languages. Also, my Swiss companion Elder Muller is going to teach me a song in German about red trousers and green socks. Trust me, it's pretty awesome.

 

Well sorry, but I'm almost out of time and still have to write my letter to the mission president. I love all of you, keep writing and emailing me! Ok, bye!!!