Blog Pictures [& Happy Holidays!]

I am just going to send a few emails of pictures and captions for Christmas. But my Christmas was good. :)

Picture 1- Pac-man Stress ball head companion.

Picture 2- A electric tricycle. Best thing ever.

 

Picture 3- Crazy Christmas lights!

 

Picture 4- Me opening a present.

 

 

Picture 5- A portion of what I got from the ward.

 

And for fun, I, Mother of Eric, will include pictures of Mike in his British crown and socks, our new "London" book, and our Skype session.

 

 

Week before Christmas!

Picture 1- Our small Christmas tree!

 

Picture 2- ???

 

Picture 3- First snow of the season! (only lasted an hour and didn't stick.)

 

Picture 4- Mission Christmas conference party.

 

Picture 5- Ward Christmas party!

 (my camera was on a different setting for the last week for some reason,

so the pictures might be a little different?)

I don't have much time this week, and I just realized I didn't send a blog one last week. So, I'll do a little catch-up. We've had our mission Christmas party and our Ward Christmas party which were both good. I got to see a lot of good friends at the mission one, and a lot of non-members came to the ward one which was really cool to see them enjoying it. Not much is happening in the work right now, even though there should be because it's CHRISTMAS! But oh well. We did get to teach a lady yesterday who I met about 2 months ago, but she was never in. She saw us on the street last week and invited us over. We stopped by, and she was excited for the Book of Mormon. And then she told us that she's working pretty much every day for the next 2 months. :/ So she said to come back in February. That seems to be how everything is going right now, stuff sort of happens, but then gets delayed a while. But it's okay, Christmas is on Sunday!

Alright, that's about all I've got time for, so I will send a good email on next Monday, Boxing Day. Bye!

14th transfer, staying in Aldershot with Elder White for Christmas!

No pictures due to being at a dodgy internet cafe due to having an unusable chapel.

So, this last week and a bit have been good. Hannah was baptised and confirmed on the 3rd and 4th of December, respectively. Here is the story of her baptism:
We got a text from our Bishop Friday night at 8:30 saying that the gas needs to be fixed at the chapel and so it is off until the next week, so we may need to postpone the baptism because there would be no hot water. I didn't feel that we should postpone since Hannah had been preparing for this day for a while, but we called Hannah and let her know the water would be cold and gave her the option of doing it or postponing. She said she wanted to just go ahead with it, so we told that to Bishop.

Saturday morning we went over the chapel to see how cold the water was. The water that came out of the font tap was... freezing. But, the water from the kitchen taps was somehow really really hot! So Elder White and I thought we would just fill up pots of hot water from there and run them over to the font to equalize the temperature of the water. We did call Hannah again and let her know just how cold the water was, and she still wanted to go for it. Her baptism was at 5:00 and from about 2:30 until then, with the assistance of our ward mission leader and his wife, we ran as much hot or boiling water from the kitchen to the font as we could. After about an hour and a half of that, the water was... still freezing. So then we got about 3 or 4 little heaters and plugged them in and put them in the rooms next to the font as we continued to boil as much water as we could and dump it in there. By 5 o clock, the water was... actually not too cold! So when it came time for the baptism, it went really well. Hannah said it was warmer than she thought it was going to be, and I guess that's the best thing we could've asked for.

So, that was a really cool experience. I could see how God helped us answer our own prayers by letting us do as much as we could, and then making up for the things we couldn't control

Anyway, we had transfers today and both Elder White and I are staying here. So this will be a pretty good Christmas. :) It's starting to get colder here, but no snow yet. :( That's about all I've got time to write, so talk to you later! Bye!

Last Week of November?

Picture 1- Elder Keck and I on exchange!

Picture 2- Our Exchange!

Hello! Wow, it's almost December! This week has been good, we got to go on an exchange with Elder Keck and Elder Folkerson, and that was good fun. It was really cool to serve with Elder Keck again, if only just for the day. We met some cool people and we'll go back to see them this next week.

Also, it was Thanksgiving and it was great! We had a feast with the youth, and our American ward mission leader's wife made pies! She even made a grasshopper pie at my request, so that was really awesome. We also had another Thanksgiving dinner the next night, which was good, if not a little less unconventional. (Did I write that right? I don't care.) We did have Turkey...Burgers. And curly fries and onion rings and Krispy Kreme doughnuts. So it was like an American themed meal, but it was still good.

Hannah is doing good, she's ready to get baptised this Saturday! So I'm excited about that. She's so cool, she's studied the gospel really well and has asked such awesome questions. I also talked to Keziah who was baptised nearly 3 months ago now, and I asked how her first few months being a member have been and she said "Well, I don't regret it!" :D And then she did say that it has improved her life, and that was so cool to hear that.

Anyway, this next week is transfer week, so I won't email on Monday, I'll email on either Wednesday or Thursday. I think either Elder White or I will move, but we'll see next week!

Seeya later, bye!

Thanksgiving week! November 21, 2011

Picture 1- Me bowling!

Picture 2- District picture.

Picture 3- A dove on an old church. Not the best picture,
but it was cool to capture it in mid-takeoff (or mid landing, I don't remember).

This is Thanksgiving week! I'm very excited for it, for many reasons. 1. Thanksgiving. 2. We found a few really cool people this last week who we're going to go teach this week. 3. Hannah is still really enjoying the gospel and she's still preparing for baptism.

And I'm sure there are other reasons too, but I can't think of them right now. The weather should cool down a lot more this week. Emphasis on should, but who knows what really will happen. I'm doing good right now, I can't really think of much to write about this last week. It was just a good one. Oh, one thing that happened is that we went knocking with a member, and at one of the first doors we knocked on was this guy on crutches around our age, and he said to the member "Hey, I remember you. You opened the door for me in town a few days ago." So that was cool to see this member's good deed also helped with missionary work! The guy said that he actually is interested in these things, so we're seeing him this week. Anyway, I guess I'll leave it at that. But let me know what you want me to write in here now, because I'm all out of ideas. :D 

Okay, write to you next week, bye!

The Missionary's Mother Has Been a Slacker!!!

In November I have been taking my very last finals at BYU and visiting my kids and grandkids :-), and I have not kept up on Eric's posts. I'll fix that ASAP, but to answer an immediate question, here is the mission home address for Christmas packages and/or letters. They will take about 10 to 14 days to get there and will be delivered to the Elders before Christmas. For packages, it is recommended to include the phone number at the bottom.

Elder Eric M. Boothe

England London South Mission

The London Temple

West Park Road

Newchapel, Surrey

ENGLAND RH7 6NB

Phone: 44-1342-833-916

Thanks for your interest in and support for our missionary! MERRY CHRISTMAS! 

Mike and Lou Ella

November 14

Picture 1- Me at the temple!
Picture 2- Me as a camel.

This was a good week. We had a Zone conference on Wednesday so I got
to see a lot of old companions and friends. We learned some good
things too. :)

We also took Hannah to the temple on Friday. She liked it and felt
that there was something different there. So everything is going
really good! I'm getting a little Christmas crazy, I think I'm being
influenced by all the advertisements and stuff. They don't really do
thanksgiving over here so all the stores have a Christmas aisle
already, and lots of Christmas themed things. As far as Halloween
goes, the ward here is going to look after us well. :) The youth are
throwing a Thanksgiving dinner and they've invited us, and we also are
going to a member's house on Thanksgiving day. And, the ward mission
leader is from Utah so he's going to have us over for their
Thanksgiving celebration as well! But that's still over a week away,
as for this week, it's looking good too. We hope to find some new
investigators this week because that's something we're struggling with
(again). So I'm making it a goal to improve my prayers and faith this
week.

That was a bit of a boring short update, but that's just how it
happened. :) I'm trying to hurry because we're going bowling with the
Guildford missionaries today. So, thanks for everything, bye!