A Story About How We Are Going to Teach this Guy Who Lives in the Middle of Nowhere...

About a month ago our ward mission leader told us he felt that we should go work in Kidwelly, a little village about 8 miles from here. So we've gone there once a week since then, via train. It didn't seem like anything was happening at first, but now we've got an investigator there and we should have to more this week. Well, sort of. One of them actually lives in the middle of nowhere a mile and a half outside the village. We met him in kidwelly when he got of the bus there with his groceries and started walking home. We started walking with him, and got halfway to the middle of nowhere talking to him until we got him to stop so I could give him a pamphlet and set up a return appointment ("its the only house on the left hand side about a mile further up this road" he said). So we're going to bring the bikes this Wednesday and find his house so we can teach him. I hope he is as willing to make the long trek into town for church as he is for doing his shopping. We've been struggling a bit in getting new investigators as we have been spending time teaching the ones we have--I think that's something I don't really have figured out yet but hopefully I will sometime. But we should have some new ones this week.  It will be awesome.

In other news, if everything goes well, I will baptize our friend Alex this Saturday, November 2nd. It should be very good. I'm still unsure about how good of an idea it is to baptize a 13 year old without any of his family, but we have prayed and felt that it is the right thing to do. Hopefully seeing his baptism will help his mum have the motivation to quit smoking and get baptized herself, and maybe it will help his sister to admit some belief in God at all. Its going to be an amazing week though, as usual, especially with Elder Thurgood. He is the man. We are really similar and have loads of fun together. Its good. Keep being awesome everyone.

Love,

Elder Seth Poulsen

Do Something to Build Your Testimony

This week has been very good. We don't really have any more new investigators, but hopefully we will have some awesome new ones this week. We are going tonight to go teach an awesome guy name Matthew we met on the street last week. We also met some really cool people on Saturday--we set up a stall in the city centre with loads of books and pamphlets and stuff. It was way awesome. I made this printouts about how the book of Mormon answers the questions of the soul.  Definitely made a lot more people aware of the fact that we are here and who we are, although we didn't get any return appointments really. Hopefully we will see more fruits as we continue to do it the next few weeks.

Also, our investigator Alex came and helped us out a ton. He place like 5 copies of The Book of Mormon. No one could say no to him because he is such a cute, twelve year old kid. The plan right now is to baptize him on his 13th birthday, the first of November.  Alex prayed and got his answer that he should come to church instead of playing rugby games, but upon discussing it with his rugby friends he was peer pressured into the compromise of switching off weeks between church and rugby. Dang. But he's going to interview with the Bishop soon and hopefully it will work out well. Tonight we will be setting goals with his mum Fran for quitting smoking and probably will give her a blessing. It will be awesome.

Somehow, this transfer is almost over. They keep going by faster and faster. It means my boy Elder Thurgood is almost halfway done being trained and will be starting to do a lot more soon hopefully.

Oh, one more awesome experience...We have started to work with this less active guy named Elliot and we are teaching him the lessons. He came to church this week. In the gospel principles class he shared with the class how he had sort of lost faith in the church but when we came and taught him and invited him to pray to know the truth, he was able to pray and feel the spirit telling him the truth of the things that we share. It was so awesome. He is 23 so definitely he could still serve a mission, so we hope to be able to work with him more and get him on track for that! I encourage you all to do something to build your testimony, something to feel the spirit. Probably the easiest way to do that is to share some part of your testimony with someone else. If you can't do it to someone who is not a member of the church, just share some of your testimony with your family member or something. If done in the right setting, I promise it will bring the spirit, and you will feel awesome. Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Poulsen

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