Hard Work

So basically this week was a lot of hard work. But that's how being a missionary is. There have been at least a few days in the last few weeks where I have just been so tired at the end of the day, but its a good tired because I know that its is because we have been working hard doing the work of the Lord. 

Its been a bit cold here. Given, its been an extremely mild winter. A year ago there was snow everywhere. But you know you're cold when you are riding your bike past cars that are having to use their defrosters on their windows. And its humid, so it cuts you to the centre (when I write center it puts a red squiggly line under it). 

We have certainly been blessed much by the Lord for the hard work which we have put in this transfer. Tonight we'll find out what moves are happening on Wednesday. Its Crazy! But that's how mission life is. But the hand of the Lord certainly is in it, He loves us so much and takes care of us when we do what's right. I know it. 

Love, 

Elder Poulsen

That's What I Do

Missionary work. That's what I do. It never hurts to take a chance to get on TV though haha. There was a Cafe that opened up in Dunchurch, a village just south of Rugby, on Saturday. We had to go down there anyway to try to find someone. So we went to have lunch at the cafe and BBC was there filming for this show to help start up restaurants. So on January 29th at 8:00 on BBC 2 we'll probably be on the show "The Restaurateur." Good luck figuring out how to find the show and watch it. If nothing else, it will show up on iTunes eventually I would assume. I'm just imagining members of the church here watching the showing and getting really excited when they see missionaries. 

The work has been so good this week. We have seen some awesome miracles in the work. When I was on exchange out of my area, my companion and the other elder that was with him had an appointment that was cancelled so they decided to go through and call a bunch of the people that were saved in the phone by previous missionaries, and they set up 4 appointments! That was pretty awesome. They taught one lady the next day, a filipino lady named Gina who was really excited about everything they shared, and even suggested that they could skype her family in the phillipines so they could be taught too. Fortunately, that won't be necessary. There are plenty of missionaries there too!

Being with Elder Eldredge is way awesome. We have become more and more unified in our teaching. We can really feel the Holy Spirit in the room, testifying of truth, when we share with people the message of The Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Another miracle this week was a lady named Jan. She was brought to church by a foster family she was with as a teenager. She rebelled, however, because she preferred the Catholic church, which was what she was used to. Four years ago she was going through a rough time and the Elders knocked on her door. They began to teach her and she came back to church, but she ultimately never was baptised and stopped going to church. Recently she has been having a rough time again, but with great faith she made the decision to try quitting smoking again, and Wednesday was her first day off the cigarettes. She was having a rough time, and prayed to God that he would send help. On Wednesday night we had an appointment nearby, but the man we were supposed to see wasn't in. So we started to knock around the doors in the area. And we knocked into Jan. What a miracle! We were able to teach her Friday evening, and we will go back around to see her again tonight. I have faith that she will progress in the gospel. 

Julie was at church again this week, her desire is great. We are not sure when she will be prepared for baptism, but the current goal is the 1st of February. 

Keep on doing the work of the Lord, the blessing and miracles are great. 

Love, 

Elder Seth Poulsen

Dunchurch

I realized that maybe you don't really know what all I am doing all day long on a day to day basis. So maybe I'll give you some more full day stories like I did that one time with that really awesome day Elder Gull and I had in the summer. Unfortunately they're is no cycling along the coast here in Rugby. We are almost as far away from the ocean as is physically possible in this country haha. 

The other day we did have a nice cycle on a sunny day down to this village called Dunchurch. It was nice, I decided I liked it. Also this guy down there told me that there is dinghy racing at a nearby lake, so hopefully I'll have time to get down there sometime on P-day. When we first got into Dunchurch I went through a light that my companion got stuck at, so I pulled over. There was a lady they're painting a fence, so I started talking to her. (Because that's what we do as missionaries: talk to every random person we get a chance to). It was a little metal fence outside of a house there on the corner of the main square of the town. Apparently she and her sister bought the house and live upstairs, but they turned the bottom floor into a cafe and it is opening next weekend. Also BBC is coming around for the day to put them on some tv show. So basically we're going to have to go so we can be on tv. And get some really good food. And talk to loads of people about the Gospel. Its going to be awesome. 

The sisters had a baptism this weekend so that was really cool. It was this awesome guy named Rich from Ghana. He just showed up at church one day a few months ago. His testimony is way solid, I got to interview him for baptism. 

We were blessed to be able to teach a lot this week, but we are struggling to have solid people who will see us continually and progress in the Gospel. Julie is still good. She has a lot of stuff to work through but will keep coming to church. We just have to help her be sure that this is the way, this is what she has been looking for her entire life. Thanks so much to everybody for all your love and prayers and support. 

Love, 

Elder Seth Poulsen

Rugby - where it all happened

1. So there is this legend here about how this kid in 1823 named William Webb Ellis caught the ball and started to run with it during a game of football. Upon further development, the game of Rugby came to be. 

2. This is Rugby School, where it all happened. This school is kind of a big deal, people come from all over to go here. Its basically like Hogwarts. 

3. This is that train station in north Wales. The lines dividing it are for ease of learning how to say it. Remember in Welsh that ll make the spit sound, f makes v sound, ff makes f sound, w makes u sound, and ch is a gutteral throat sound. Good luck. I'm sure you could find some youtube videos on this. 

Christmas, Christmas, Christmas. I hope you all enjoyed it. I am sad to have missed the family nativity. Thankfully, our ward had multiple nativities so that was pretty awesome, and reminded us all of the true meaning of Christmas. On Christmas morning I read Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2. The verse that hit me with the most power was Matthew 1:21,  "And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins." That's so awesome! Jesus will save us from our sins! And I get to share that with people every day! I love it. 

Love, 

Elder Poulsen

It's Not Actually P-day Today

So I don't have much time to email because there are people that we need to go Find, Teach, and Baptize. Our p-day has actually been moved to Boxing day, the day after Christmas (its actually a holiday here-and they have loads of crazy sales and other things). Anyway, we are doing way awesome. Elder Eldredge is buckets of fun. Maybe I'll send you a picture of him sometime--or you'll see him on Christmas!!! He's a way good singer so we've been singing together and that's fun. Also we met this amazing lady named Julie who we have been teaching and she came to the ward social and to church and is loving it. Its so cool how God places people in our paths. Hopefully we'll keep meeting awesome people like that and we'll have baptized the whole city pretty soon. I just talked to my ward mission leader Brother Frohock and he said 6 is the best time to skype so 6 it is! I figured it would be later like that so you can get all your presents opened and things. Thankfully some ward members have given us some things so we actually have a few wrapped things under our little fake tree. God is so awesome, always remember that, and I'm excited to see you on Wednesday!

Love, 

Elder Poulsen

I Thought That Was a Sport?

I'm in Rugby. Apparently this is where Rugby was invented. That's the legend, anyway. Rugby is just a bit east of Coventry. Its also pretty close to Northampton (which is in the London mission), so I can tell people that I used to live in Northampton... Massachusetts. My companion now is a awesome kid named Elder Eldredge, who actually came out the same time as me, so that's nice. We're going to do some powerful teaching by the spirit once we have people to teach. 

One cool thing is a few of my good friends from the MTC who I hadn't seen in quite a long time are serving in Coventry, so I'll get to see them when we go there for meetings! That's pretty cool -because they are pretty cool. Funny enough in the last ward I was serving in I was the oldest missionary, but now I am the youngest one serving in the ward. The ward here seems pretty awesome so I am excited to get the missionary work going here. I must admit I was sad to leave Wales, but England is pretty dang awesome too. I miss the Watkins family already, but I'll certainly write this afternoon. 

Our ward mission leader is really awesome so we're going to be working on how to get all the members to be really excited about doing missionary work. At church on Sunday I met this super cool 18 year old kid. He said, "You should just get up there and tell everyone to bring one friend. I reckon you could double the size of the ward." That's easier said than done, but miracles will certainly happen as we have faith and work hard. I'm excited for it. There are so many absolutely amazing people out there that God has prepared to receive the message of the Restored Gospel. As it says in the scriptures, "For behold, angels are declaring it unto many at this time in our land; and this is for the purpose of preparing the hearts of the children of men to receive his word at the time of his coming in his glory." (Alma 13:24). I'm excited to meet these people. 

Have an amazing week everyone, 

Love, 

Elder Poulsen

Burry Port Miracle

I'm going to share with you one really amazing cool miracle we had this week. 

A few months ago we met this guy sitting outside a pub and so we gave him a leaflet. He runs and lives above a cafe in Burry Port. It’s hard to catch him in because you have to go right before he closes up so he isn't busy but after he closes up you can't get to him. We were able to see him about a month ago. He enjoyed pondering on the leaflet (I think it was Plan of Salvation we gave him first--we have three main leaflets corresponding with the three first missionary lessons--The Restoration, Plan of Salvation, The Gospel of Jesus Christ) and so we gave him two more. For the last month we hadn't been able to see him. Saturday probably marked the fifth or sixth time that we were actually in Burry Port at the right time but just weren't able to go say ‘hi’ to him because we had appointments or were talking to other people or whatever. Later in the evening, Saturday, we came out of an appointment back here in Llanelli and we were getting our bikes. A man was walking past. Then, recognizing us, he started to walk towards us. "Do you remember me? from Burry Port?" He asked. And I knew who it was--it was Lee, the cafe man. He proceeded to tell us about how much he enjoyed reading all the leaflets. He has them on his windowsill so he sees them every morning when he gets up. Reading them has changed his view about life. He told us about how he is now much more conscious of how the ‘him’ of the past can stay in the past and he can become a new person. He thinks more of the consequences of his actions. He even (and he said this was unlike him) asked his ex (who he had a son with) to forgive him for the person he used to be and he said it has really made a difference in their relationship, made it a lot less strained. 

This takes me back to the first few times I handed out leaflets and Book of Mormons about 8 months ago. I expected everyone to come back from reading these things with a changed view of life, because of the amazing life changing doctrine in them. Unfortunately, not many people have an open enough heart for that to happen--but for Lee it did. The point is, God is a God of miracles--in this case both in how we were able to come back into contact with Lee and how the Spirit has touched his heart. 

An update on the W----s: They are awesome - so awesome! Alex passed the sacrament in church again yesterday. I just hope and pray that his quorum will take good care of him and in 5 or six years he'll end up with some nametags that say "Elder W-----." Fran is still struggling with the word of wisdom a lot, but she loves coming to church, praying, and reading from the Book of Mormon. She had a blessing yesterday, and it stated that as she calls upon God to help her in her efforts to keep the Word of Wisdom, He will help her. And when she does keep the Word of Wisdom, her other health problems will begin to be sorted out as well. How fantastic!

Unfortunately, I probably won't be around to see all of this-we'll get the transfer call in a few hours now and I have some good reasons to believe I'll be leaving. Where will I be emailing from next week? Probably only God and President Rasmussen know at this point -haha. 

I hope you all have a fantastic week and remember that God is a God of Miracles. 

Love, 

Elder Seth Poulsen