Write Questions to Me

I really have no idea what to write this week. I'm coming up completely dry. Maybe you guys can all write questions to me that you would like answered and I can answer them next week. Then I'll actually write more haha. 

The other day I was cycling and half of my bike lock fell off. I guess it broke. That's okay though, it was a cheap one that I found in my last flat. 

The work is going really well now, we now have 4 investigators with baptismal dates. Hopefully they will actually get baptised! Julie is coming back from alcohol rehab this week, so hopefully she will be baptised next weekend. That will be sooooo awesome! 

Just remember always that God is awesome. What is important to us is important to Him, because He loves us so very much. He is so Good. Never fail to appreciate all of the things He blesses us with. 

Love, 

Elder Poulsen

I Got Another One!

So this week I got...a new missionary! That's right, another one. Funny enough, my trainer Elder Chardon is training another new missionary too, and my firstborn Elder Thurgood just got transferred to the same district as Elder Chardon and the Elder he is now training. Furthermore, my new companion is Albanian. That's right, another one. I never would have guessed, when I came on my mission, that I would have a companion from Albania, and I certainly never would have guessed I would have two. Elder Lapi was the first to come in, and Elder Myrtaj (my new companion) is the fourth to come in to the mission. So I just need to serve with the other two and I will have served with all the Albanians in the mission!

1. Me and Elder Myrtaj (pronounced Muir-Thai with muir as in John Muir and Thai as in Asian people)

2. this is Elder Eldredge and I painting last p-day

3. my painting

Elder Myrtaj is so excited to be here, which is awesome. When I asked him how long he had to wait after he got his mission call, he told me in days. Also, he just turned 18 last June, while I was already on my mission. That's pretty crazy. Also it means that he is closer to Connor in age than he is to me...

Julie is doing well, she will be baptised sometime in the next few weeks. She has been to church for 6 weeks in a row now, which is totally awesome. 

When I went to the mission home to pick up Elder Myrtaj, I ran into Elder Debeikes, the Elder who replaced me in Llanelli, who was also picking up a new missionary to train. So I was able to hear about how the Watkins family is doing! Alex is still as awesome as ever, I actually got a letter from him too. He still passes the sacrament every week and still hasn't missed a week of church since before his baptism. His mum (and my adopted welsh mammy) Fran was finally able to have a much needed surgery this week and so her health should improve dramatically, enabling her to attend church each week. 

I hope all is well at home, and keep on going in the work of the Lord. 

Love, 

Elder Seth Poulsen

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