Crazy!!!

This week has been a bit crazy. We had a special mission conference and a follow up training meeting in Birmingham two days in a row, so we were basically gone from our area for two days straight. Because it takes us four hours of trains to get to the mission home from here. It was okay though because the meetings awesome. We have some great new ideas and new motivation to be awesome missionaries in our area.

We still have these amazing investigators; they just happen to all have really big obstacles in their way. It’s frustrating. But we will press forward with patience and faith. Rhiannon, Alex's older sister has been in with us for a few more lessons. She still claims to be atheist, but we can tell when she's feeling the spirit...so we'll see how that goes.

We are going to start working with some less active priesthood holders. Hopefully we'll be able to bring some more strength to the ward and even find more people to teach them. I realized through the meetings we had that I should be doing a better job getting all the members to think we're worth referring their friends to--and just getting them to pray for our investigators and stuff. Missionary work is so awesome. I love it.

Love,

Elder Poulsen

A Cool Miracle

Conference was way good. We didn't get to watch all of it yet due to time differences but we will. I hope you all noticed Richard J. Maynes talking about Gloucester...

On Saturday we were walking to our ward mission leader's house and I had a distinct impression that we needed to knock on a specific door that was about 20 yards in front of us. I knew I had knocked it before, about a month ago when I was with Elder Gull. But I couldn't remember if there was an answer or not. So we knocked on it. A lovely lady opened the door and invited us in. We couldn't at the time, but we gave her a Book of Mormon and set an appointment to teach her tonight. It will be awesome. God really is looking out for us.

We have some really awesome investigators as well, and we are struggling to help them progress, we just need to be more humble and receptive to the Spirit so that God can let us know what we need to do to help them the best that we can. They each seem to have insurmountable obstacles placed in their paths as they strive to live the Gospel more fully. But I know that God will help them, and he will help us to know what to do as we seek to help them. Because God is awesome. I know I've said things like this a lot, but God does stuff for us all the time. I had an amazing moment yesterday when I switched from thinking about all of the things going wrong to thinking about the amazing miracles we have seen recently. I instantly became so much happier. Look for the miracles, and you will see them.

Love,

Elder Seth Poulsen

Missionary Work is Awesome.

1. [mission] Family picture!!!

2. There were some tennis rackets and balls in our flat. So this morning we played some tennis at this awesome low-quality tennis court down the road. We had to stop after about 15 minutes because both of the balls ended up over the wall. One was on someone's roof, and the other we couldn't find. But it was fun. 

3. Did I show you this yet? Its the Iron rod. I never knew where it was, but now I know that its on the street in Cardiff. 

So, like I said, missionary work is awesome. It really is. I love it. So does my companion. Which is good. Also we found an old deep fryer under our sink. We've been cleaning it up. And so we're gonna make chips tonight (remember--chips in the UK are not what they are in the US)! It’s gonna be awesome. 

This week was amazing. We didn't even teach that many lessons, and we spent endless hours talking to random people and having them not very interested. But the lessons we did have were with some amazing people. We had two investigators at church this week, more than we had all of last transfer. And we now have two investigators with baptismal dates and another one will soon--the first time we have had an investigator with a baptismal date since I got here almost two months ago. God is so good. Look for the miracles, and you will see them.

Love,

Elder Poulsen

What?

So my mission President called me 9 days ago and asked me I would train a new missionary. So...I am. His is Elder Thurgood from Nampa, Idaho and he's super awesome. He's actually training me. Which is good becasue I still feel like I'm supposed to be the new missionary. He's so excited to do missionary work and has so much faith. On his first night he gave a blessing to our investigator Francine. It was awesome.

We had a really cool/unique church meeting yesterday. It was a special meeting to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the stake center in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales. It was a way awesome, beautiful building. I heard its the biggest chapel in Europe. The speakers consisted of a lady that helped build the building, the first person to ever be baptized in the building, the mission President, the stake president, and Patrick Kearon (remember him from General Conference?), the first councelor in the Europe area presidency. It was way cool to be part of such an occassion. Though it was mostly in English, there was a prayer and a musical number in Welsh for good measure. Merthyr Tydfil is where the legendary Dan Jones, one of the best missionaries ever, did a lot of his work.

The few people that we are teaching are doing well. We have had some amazing experiences recently, but are still working hard and seeking to find more people to teach so that we can soon have people progressing towards baptism. On Saturday, Francine gave an amazing, heartfelt prayer at the end of our lesson. I realized that I have probably seen more change in her than anyone else I have had the opportunity of knowing on my mission. She has come so far since I met her sitting on her doorstep and she told me she didn't believe in God. The family still has a lot of obstacles keeping them from church, but we'll work on it. God's miracles are amazing.

Love,

Seth (I decided to do that on my emails today instead of Elder Poulsen so you wouldn't forget my actual name).

Good Stuff

This has been quite a rewarding week. We were able to have many lessons and had three new investigators!!! It was way good. We are seeing the fruits of our many labors. Yesterday there was a crazy storm where there was tons of rain being blown sideways by the wind. It was pretty awesome, especially for cycling in. We also got fed loads of chips (the type of chips you think of when you think of fish & chips--potato chips here are called crisps) by our ward mission leader. Loads of people have their own fryers here so they can make their own chips. I might have to get one when I get home because I'll miss chips too much otherwise. 

I'd like to share with you another miracle that happened by the spirit. These happen all the time. Its where the spirit tells you to do something but then you think "why would I do that?" and then you (hopefully) have enough faith to do it anyway, and then something awesome happens. We were riding to church yesterday and the thought came to my mind that we should stop by Peter, a recent convert here. So we did. He had slept in by accident, so we woke him up when we knocked on his door and he was able to come to church. Way good. Trust what the spirit tells you to do. Always. And remember that is through the Atonement of Jesus Christ that all these awesome miracles happen. 

Love, 

Elder Seth Poulsen

So Last Week I Got This Crazy Rash

Ten days or so ago I got stung by a wasp. Which was cool until a couple days later when I had this crazy infected rash. I decided not to tell you about it last week because I didn't want you freaking out for a week only to find out that I'm perfectly fine. Which I am. Rash is all gone. I just have a tiny scab on my wrist where the sting was. Moral of the story: when wasps are flying around, don't ride your bike into them (not that I did it on purpose).

 Our week had some big holes in it--we lost tons of proselyting time having to go to Cardiff so I could see the stake president there who is a doctor. He prescribed me some antibiotics and antihistamines so now I'm all better. Seeing Cardiff was cool though. They have this huge stadium for football (not American football) and rugby and the city center there is absolutely MASSIVE. Its super crazy. There is a huge castle in the middle of town too. So now I've officially done some exploring around the capital of wales due to awkward amounts of time between doctors appointments and train rides. Cool story, I know. One of the times we went, however, we ran into an almost investigator of ours who works in Cardiff and I got to talk to him the whole way home. That was way cool. He taught me some welsh history and stuff. Apparently the whole King arthur/merlin myths all originated and are centered around Carmarthen, a town which is part of our area here! some of the members live there. But I've never been there because its a half hour train ride away. Shoot.

We are still struggling to find people to teach as far as the missionary work is going. We keep having a lesson or two with people then they drop us. Its frustrating. But we do have two really awesome investigators, and God will keep blessing us more because he's Awesome.

Love,

Elder Poulsen

*Mother's Note* -Now I can see why he sounded kind of down and out last week!  He is probably right though, I would have worried.  Hate it when they know you better than you know yourself!

This Week

This week has been trying, but we have seen the rewards as well. After weeks of trying to find people to teach, we finally had tons and tons of lessons set up to teach people. And then almost all of them got cancelled or dropped. Four cancelled Wednesday, three Thursday, one Friday, another three Saturday.

On the upside, we were able to begin teaching Alex (the little blonde kid in the picture of the castle last week) and his mother, and Alex came to church! That was the first time we had an investigator at church since I've been here - so awesome.  He is a super bright kid too. The Young Men’s president was telling us afterward that he was way good in the young men's class (he's almost 13), even answering questions. So the Lord is definitely richly blessing us and rewarding us for the hard work we have put in. It is so awesome. God is so good to us. We see miracles all the time. Llanelli is still beautiful too. I love it every day. Keep practicing saying Llanelli. Maybe you'll get it some day.

Love,

Elder Poulsen