Sunday, May 22, 2016


Alec and Elder Jensen...matching ties!!
Familia, 
My journal writing died this past week... oops. It's sad to me because there are so many memories that are lost. I'll use my planner and try to remember things!
On Monday we had a DA with the Proudfoots. We brought our ripped trousers (and I brought a suit jacket) for Sister Proudfoot to fix for us. She brought them all back on Sunday! It was so nice of her to do that for us. 
Marcel's baptism got moved to 28 May because of a difficult family situation that came up. But, all is well! He'll get baptised soon enough. Our friend Joseph (Portuguese) accepted 25 June as a baptismal date. We taught him in the home of a Brazilian member.  
We did some service this week; shovelling rocks into a bag, digging a hole for a plant, and clearing a path. It's nice to help the members out. Another highlight of the week was our dinner at the Stake President's home. They're such a good family. 
District meeting
Fraser Dixon (waiting for his mission call), Elder Jensen, and I sang "Nearer my God To thee" in sacrament meeting yesterday. That was fun. We were only able to practice yesterday morning before church but it went well enough. 
Life is good! Hope you all have a great week
Love,
Elder Withers
 


 
 

 

Thursday, May 12, 2016

[SENT MAY 10]

Hello family! 
It was great to see you all on Sunday. Fun to be together via facetime for Mum's day! 
 
Yay! Mother's Day
Funny Alec!!
My week was really good! I saw Big Ben and Buckingham palace for the first time on the way home from Mission Leadership Council (MLC) in Hyde Park (HP) Chapel.  

MLC starts at 10, so we have to leave Colchester pretty early to be on time due to heavy traffic in London. We picked up the STL's early wednesday morning to go, and Sister Lung said a prayer that we'd arrive at 9:45. Long story short, I drive and miss a couple of turns (awkward) and traffic is pretty bad. We were approaching a turn at one point, and as we were waiting I saw a train on the bridge. I recieved a prompting that we should take a train into MLC in attempts to be on time. We talk about it and decide to go to Stratford Station. We find a car parking lot, take the tube to South Kensington, and walk to HP chapel. We walked through the doors at 9:44! How crazy. What a miracle! We were even given an extra minute. It's almost as if the Lord was saying, "Don't worry, I heard Sister Lung's prayer. You're in good hands. I'll even give you an extra minute to use the restroom before the meeting." It's the little things :) 

Mission Leadership Conference
Zone meeting on Friday was great. At one point we went outside and had an activity to break up the meeting. We played the question game! To play, everyone (27 missionaries in our zone) gets in a circle. One person starts with a ball. They ask any question, then throw the ball to someone else, who then has to do the same thing; catch the ball, ask a question, and throw it to someone else. If you answer or repeat a question you're out. Before we started, there was a sister missionary who invited 3 college girls that were walking by to play with us. So the game is going on, someone throws the ball to me, and I throw it to one of the girls asking "Do you wanna get baptised?". I'm so funny. Hopefully you enjoyed this story. If not, hopefully you're intrigued and want to try this game. 

Zone Meeting
On Saturday, we went to the Stake Priesthood Leadership Meeting. We were originally debating on whether or not we should go, but we decided we should go because President Fagg wanted us to. And it's a good thing we did! President Fagg asked me to give the invocation, and at the end of the meeting, during President Fagg's trianing on "bring a friend", he asked Elder Jensen and I to briefly share ideas on how the members can do that. 

As I said during our facetime, on Sunday I cooked cod for the first time. For the entertainment of Brock and Drake, the package that originally contained the fish said "fishmonger" on the label.  

Life is good! I'm staying in Colchester for another transfer with Elder Jensen. This transfer will only be a 5 week one (they're usually 6 weeks), so I anticipate it'll go really fast. I also fixed my iPad screen today. Elder Jensen and I also bought a companionship tie today. I'll send you a picture when we decide to match. 

Alec and Elder Jensen
Love you guys! Have a great week.
 
Elder Withers
 
Busy Elder Withers

Thursday, May 5, 2016

[SENT MAY 2, 2016]
Alec and Elder Jensen
Brethren and sisteren,

Hi familia. Happy Monday! And special greetings to Sister Jensen
😊. I love your son mucho. Here's the story of my week.

I've had more meaningful prayers this week! At night, I go to the room next to our bedroom and kneel down. I try not to lean on anything and to pray vocally! It makes a real difference in my day when I have good prayers. I love it.

I started studying PMG from the beginning! I really want to go through it all. It's great. If you want to look at member missionary work quotes look at the quotes in chapter 1 of PMG.

We painted part of Margaret Randall's fence and she made us lunch. She made a really good "Greek style tuna bake". I'm not a fish person (or a fishy person for that matter) but it was really good. So good that I asked to take a pict of the recipe. Will I make it while I'm on my mission? Good question. We'll see. I exercised the most restraint on eating that I have in my life for that meal... I took Elder Jensen's advice and chewed my food a lot. And I enjoyed it more! And I didn't eat too much. Thank goodness for wise companions. 
 
We went to the gym every day (except Sunday of course) last week! And we went today. Today and Saturday I ran 2.5 miles in 20 minutes and burned 400 calories. Nice stats innit. I feel like I'm making real progress and it's great! :) hopefully I'll be ripped by the time we FaceTime on el dia de los madres. Post workout selfie this morning:
We played football on Saturday! That was fun. I was tired though from running in the morning... I really do enjoy playing football.

Here's just a picture of me and Elder Lindsay from an exchange. I'm wearing another Elder's coat.
 

I also caught my companion dozing twice this week. I'll send you the videos I took.
 
I love being a missionary! I feel happy, find satisfaction in the work, and am growing a lot. Life is good. Love you all!

Have a great week
Elder Withers