Transfers

Hey!

So transfers were this week. On Friday we got a call from president and...we're both going AP! Just kidding, we're not! In fact, none of us, not even the Didcot Elders are moving...which means that the fantastic foursome lives on! I'm pretty happy to be staying here because I think this is the best area in the mission. We have an awesome district and an awesome ward--which will be receiving an addition shortly. Elder Raveneau on the other hand has already been in this area for 8 months so he wasn't as thrilled as me to be staying. Personally, I'm glad he's staying because things are rolling here in Oxfordshire.

Looking back, it was a pretty good week. It only rained once! It started last Monday and ended yesterday.  People never left their houses, so it was tough to street contact this week. We did a lot of knocking which was a good change. The spirit really kicked in towards the end of the week and we had a bunch of lessons and some new investigators. On top of that, our current investigators are golden! We're teaching a man from Carterton named Jonathan who is looking for the truth. He's also studying with the Jehovahs Witnesses, but that won't be a problem. He's reading the Book of Mormon and praying so we just need to get him to church.

Speaking of church, the Rathbone family also came on Sunday! As you know, we found them as we were knocking a street which the Sutton family had prayed for where somebody would be baptized. They Suttons felt good about Teasel Way, and that's where we found the Rathbones. They are soliiiiid. But they enjoyed church even though kids were screaming and stuff and Simon even asked me to give him a blessing for his broken hand. I did so and they felt the spirit. Boom. Love that family! We are so tight with them--they even invited us over for dinner next month. It's been so cool to whitewash his area. We have built it up from scratch and it's now one of the most fruitful areas in the zone.

One day as we were walking through Witney, this lady ran up to us and asked us where our church was. I instantly recognised her Utah accent and told her I was from Utah as well! Long story short, her name is Candace and she's a less active member and wants to start coming back to church. We stop by and visit her at the phone shop where she works and share a thought with her every day. Her coworkers have been listening in and want to come to church as well. It's awesome!

It also got really chilly this week. It's nothing like Utah: this is humid. It feels like I'm swimming in ice and the wind goes right through my clothes. One day we froze while trying to find an investigator's home and walked for ages to find it. We always walk a lot every day, but we kept going and going and going until we were in the middle of nowhere and we froze!! Fortunately we found him and although we were cold, we didn't freeze. As President Gubler says, "many are cold, but few are frozen."

By the way, the 40 day fast works, folks! Elder Raveneau and I are doing it as a companionship to have the spirit with us and we have seen an increase in miracles. I want you to give it a try too. Just make a list of every thing you do that drives the spirit away and then just stop doing those things. Pretty simple. Just go for it and see what happens. You'll be a different person by the end of those 40 days.

Great things are happening. We got to go through the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford last week so that was cool.  It's one of the oldest libraries in Europe. And we're playing ping pong and soccer for P day today so I'm really excited about that.

That's all for this week, have a good one guys!

Love Elder Thomas

A guy was burned here a while ago

The Bodleian Library

At the Bodleian Library 

The district 

The shirt Jaden sent me