Gloucester is Awesome!

 I urge you to resist the temptation to pronounce every letter of that name in your head when you read it. I may never fully understand British pronunciation, but it really is pronounced glos-ster. (The next town over is Cheltenham, pronounced chelt-num. Go figure.) The city is so cool though. All the buildings are really old (including a few cathedrals), and mostly made out of brick. I apologize for no pictures yet--I'm at the library and I forgot my camera back at the flat (its not an apartment here, its a flat). They have a lot more character to them than the western suburbia I am used to. It is really confusing to get around because all the roads are curvy (you should check out a map of the city--its ridiculous), so I'm still pretty lost most of the time. I'll get it eventually, I guess. Remember how I joked that I was going to be biking in the rain every day of my mission? Well I was wrong. On the first day I didn't, because I didn't have a bike yet. The next day I got a bike, raincoat, and rain trousers (basically just trousers made of tent fabric that you put on over your slacks when it is raining) so I'm all ready to go. I also picked up a cool watch for 18 quid. I really just wanted to say quid. Because I can. Unfortunately, pounds don't actually fit in my wallet because they are wider than dollars. So I might get a new wallet. Or I might just go around with them hanging out of the top.

     My trainer is pretty awesome so he had a few appointments lined up for the night that I got here. The first person we visited was Jenny Davies (pronounced Davis because she is from Wales and that's how they do it there apparently). She's is totally amazing. She read the whole book of Mosiah that day. She just has an immense desire to do what is right and to learn a ton because of the great blessings she sees from it in her life. The missionaries in Cheltenham ran into her one day on the street 3 weeks ago (she just moved to Gloucester a week ago) and she is being baptized this Saturday.

     The people here are great. I love their humor. I also love that they all have accents. I just can't stop being entertained by it. Every time that I talk to someone I get a kick out of the fact that they have a British accent. What makes it even more fun, though, is that there are tons of different accents. People speak slightly different depending on where in Britain they are from. Once I've been here a bit longer, I'll hopefully be able to tell where people are from based on their accent. Also, they actually say things like, "what he's going on about" and "he's been going round" just like they do in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

     There is just one ward here in Gloucester (city of about 110,000 population I think) and it is great. We share it with a pair of Sister Missionaries, and they are probably going to give us another set of Elders next transfer (there are another 30 missionaries coming to my mission in a month, and probably an equal amount for the next few transfers after that too. It wouldn't be a surprise at all if I end up training right after being trained). Don't worry, the Church is the same here in England (except that everyone here has a cool accent). The chapel here has a really sweet organ that I am going to go play this afternoon. I'm excited out of my mind because I haven't gotten to practice in three weeks. There are a couple people here that sort of know how to play it, but not really. So there putting me into the rotation right away (I'll be playing opening & sacrament hymns this week) and I'll probably teach them a few things about the organ as well. I'm pretty excited for that. There are a few guys in the ward who play tennis too so I might get to play sometime. Tonight we are having dinner with a family that has their sixth boy on the way--just like us except theirs are a lot closer together in age (their oldest is 8). Elder Chardon and I have been talking together about how we can help families in our wards make mission plans so that they can share the Gospel with their friends. It is going to be way good.

     We had an awesome miracle the other day. We were on our way somewhere and Elder Chardon pointed to one of the houses we were biking by and said, "we need to stop by that house on the way back."

     "Why?" I asked.

     "Because the Spirit said so."

     A couple hours later were headed back the other direction so we stopped by the house. After we knocked, a man opened the door. He looked at us and said, "well, why don't you come in then." His name is Phil. We didn't get to talk to him much because he had to get going somewhere, but we are going back to teach him tomorrow and I'm am super excited for that. There are a few other people we are going to be teaching this week that I am really excited for because they can really use our message. There are also people that totally rejected us that really need our message. Which is sad. Anyway, our miracle got me thinking about miracles in general. People (all people, including members of the Church) seem to think that God doesn't do miracles like he used to anymore, because we don't hear of people being instantly healed from sickness or seas being parted. Well, they're wrong. God works miracles in the ways by doing things that are completely incomprehensible to people, so there is no way that they can be explained away. He has always worked that way. Modern medicine is so advanced that healing from sickness is not much of a miracle anymore. Man can do it, just like the Pharaoh’s magicians were able to make frogs appear and whatever else it was that they did. So in this day of technology being everywhere, one of the ways that God works miracles is by making known unto us by the Holy Ghost things that we could not have known any other way, such as Elder Chardon knowing that we needed to stop at that house. Not even the Internet could have told him that. The only thing that would stop the miracles of God is the unbelief of man (Mormon 9: 18-20). So then, choose to believe, and you will see miracles.