London Calling: Area 5: Clapham Common

Everything is good in the 'hood! I am so happy to be back up in London. My new area is called Clapham Common, which is in the London Wandsworth Stake, but our flat is in South Wimbledon.

Here's what transfer day looks like on the train.
(I think everyone is having to help with Braiden's many bags and instruments!)

Everything's been really good in the ward so far. I'm really excited to be working here. I'm missing being digital quite a bit... Honestly, it was so sad sending my last emails, and doing my last Mormon.org chats... But, I know, that as you said, the Lord called me here not out of coincidence, but out of a complete knowledge of His plan for me, and this area.

Last lunch at Nando's, before leaving Crawley, with the Elders, Sister Stewart and Sister Catogni.

It appears that my seeking to establish a Spanish Branch was jumping the gun just a bit... With Kennington ward, they want as many of the Spanish Speakers as are willing to go there. Still, we were going through the ward list this morning, and found somewhere near 30 Spanish or Portuguese speaking families within the ward, 25 or so are less-active. So, we'll be working with our ward missionaries, the Armelinis (who are from Argentina!) to help bring them back, and try to work with their non-member spouses/children.

This is our Bishop. He's one of the coolest guys in the world. He's really excited about the missionary work in the ward right now, and is excited to get things going. He's the one who started us on working with the less-actives, and so that's our current plan.

Elder Lika's great. He's from Albania, as mentioned before, and he's only been out three months, so I'm follow-up training him. He's got a lot of excitement about the work, and a lot of love for the members and investigators. He also speaks both Albanian and Italian, which is going to be really good for our work here.

We live in a four-man flat with Elder O'Keefe from Manchester, and Elder Hartshorn from Spokane, Washington. It gets kind of crazy, as four-man flats usually do. It's really strange for me to be District Leader here, because half of the District is under six months on their mission, so I've got to be the example. Also, I'm super stoked, because Elder Blackner's my Zone Leader, and my half-mission-brother, Elder Smith (Elder Blackner trained him right as I left) is in our District as well.

Elder Lika and Elder O'Keefe doing service for one of our investigators.

Elder Hartshorn and I.

As for how actual missionary work's going, we're kind of starting from scratch... I mean, we've got a bit of a teaching pool, and some people are moving forward, slowly but surely, but we've got no progressing investigators or baptismal dates, so we're working on using our individual talents a lot to improve that. Both Elder Lika and I have gotten super excited about what we can get going.