Area 6: Winchester

Winchester Town Centre

Winchester is located in Southampton, in the Portsmouth Zone.

Well, looks like your prayers were answered. I don't have a ton of time to write today, since I've got a million things to do before moving off to Winchester. It's a lot more countryside than Clapham is, so there's a plus, and it's in good ol' Portsmouth Zone, which means I'll be able to see all of my Chichester friends. I'm pretty stoked about that.

I'll be follow-up training again (third time's the charm, right? Hahaha.) an elder named Elder Mercer. He was trained by a buddy of mine, Elder Treadway, and so I'm pretty excited about that. I've been spending the last few days setting a lot of goals that should make the next transfer really solid. So, I'm well excited for that.

In short, Christmas was wonderful. We were able to spend the whole day both working and visiting members at the same time, which was awesome. Best of both worlds. So, I'm really proud of it.

Elder Ocando and I, caroling at the Tower Bridge.

Christmas Skype with my family!

Christmas Dinner with the Santana's!

I am excited for this transfer. I'm grateful for the transfers that I've had here. I guess it just confirmed to me that I'm doing a lot better than I thought. I remember receiving a blessing a while ago that said that in the Pre-Mortal Life, I was one of the diligent Spirits. I guess I've never really believed that, but I'm grateful to see instances now that I have been diligent. I guess it's comforting to know that it is something that I'm learning how to do.

Well, plenty to do here... Kary's not happy that Sister Catogni and I are leaving, so we'll be seeing her shortly, after Kevin, and then we've got a million other appointments. Yay for busyness...!

Love you!

- Elder Green


Hey, quick update: (Tuesday, 12/30)

I really don't have much to say... We were able to see a few people yesterday, like Kary and Phoebe & Maxwell. I've just gotten to Winchester, and it's so beautiful here. Honestly, it's like, a town right out of old English Literature. We stopped by on our way to the chapel (which is only a ten minute walk from our flat) to see the Round Table. Like, the real Round Table. Pretty sick, yeah? Also, my companion's great. I'm really excited to start working with him. He's from Colorado Springs, and is really nice. Went to BYU for a Summer Semester before coming out.

The Round Table hanging in Winchester Castle.

 Anyway, I love you guys,

- Elder Green

CATCHING UP! (Sorry, Mom's been busy...)

Yes, we did perform at the Christmas Truce program. Elder Ocando and I played with Angus Dick from the ward (the one who knows Jack). Elder Ocando on the uke, Angus playing bass on the guitar, and me soloing on the Mandolin to "O Tannenbaum". It was pretty sweet honestly. Maybe not the most amazing and inspiring performance (that would probably have been Angus's brother Robin, who's a vocal performance major), but it was really nice and charming. At least, I think so. Pauline was freaking out about it, and Elder Herbertson of the Seventy congratulated us on it, but I think they were just being nice.

Ran into the Welch's at the Christmas Truce Program.

This week's been crazy. Crazy. Crazy. In the last half of the week alone, I had to pull two exchanges back to back right after the temple trip. The temple trip was so good. It was great being able to see all the missionaries that I haven't seen in such a long time, like Elder Glasgow and Elder Brown. They're such good guys. And getting the opportunity to hang out with all of the Digital Crew for dinner was good. I felt so at home with them all. I'm telling you, the Digital Zone is just special. But I received so much revelation in the temple, it was wonderful.

Afterward, I went out on exchange with Elder Blackner. We went to a funeral and nearly got kicked out. Well, kind of. It was the funeral of their investigator's aunty at a Methodist Church. It's super lucky that we found the place in the first place, because she just told us, "It's a church right off a roundabout, and it's something about Christ, or Methodist or something..." It wasn't off a roundabout, but we saw the funeral car. As we walked in, these two huge guys walked up and said, "Latter-day Saints...?" And blocked us from coming in. They were super surprised when we told her we had been invited. We were the only two white guys in there, except for the Preacher lady who kept shooting us dirty looks. Anyway, the rest of the exchange was pretty good. We got to work up in proper London, right up next to the Shard.

Anyway, after that Elder Smith and I went on exchange. We had a great exchange as well, and were able to see an amazing miracle. So, just over a week ago, Elder Ocando and I met this woman named Joanna, who had previously met missionaries in Essex and who wants to meet up again and have us teach her and all her flatmates. Well, as I called initially, the call didn't go through, and she said, "Oh, it's fine, it's my work number, and I don't have it right now." But, we tried again later, and it still didn't work. We kept trying throughout the week to no avail. Well, I knew about where she lived, and so Elder Smith and I, on exchange, set to try our own faith. We said to ourselves, "Okay, we'll knock three doors, and Heavenly Father will show us where she lives." We prayed for it, and both felt impressed to try one specific building. We tried the first door, but no answer. Second door wasn't her. So, we opened the scriptures, and I turned to page 257, and was led back to that same page a few times. We tried two more doors, but no answer. We figured we'd try those doors again at a better time, but as we were walking through the park I had a spark of inspiration, and opened my planner. Her phone number read 277 at one point, so I decided to try changing it to 257. The woman on the other end confirmed that it was Joanna's number, though she wasn't in at work and asked for a message, so we'll be calling her soon.

What else... Hmm, well, I'll probably be calling you guys on Wednesday around 4:00ish, our time, so that's 8:00 am for you. Maybe a bit earlier. We'll see. Sorry for making it so early, that's the only way it'll work for us. We'll be going to a Portuguese member's house, so we'll be eating tons of food. And after that, we're actually going to another Portuguese family where we'll Skype you guys. Other than that, we'll be working on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day, though we may be going to the Bishop's on Boxing Day or something. We'll be looking for more opportunities to teach throughout the day, probably by playing music with the other missionaries.

Anyway, that's about it. Excited to see you on Thursday! Love you guys.

- Elder Braiden Green

Here are a couple of excerpts from last weeks letter...

The biggest high point of this week was definitely the baptism we were able to have. She moved to England a couple of years ago to work and to learn more about Jesus Christ. Struggling with the language, however, she had put off religion, until a friend of her asked, "So, where are you with God? Have you found the answers you were looking for?" She explained that she had been so busy with other things that she had put that off, but that she would begin looking again.Two days later, Elder Jackman and I walked up to her in Clapham Common and tried to give her a Mormon.org card. She was super excited, but spoke minimal English, so we just said, "Hey, no worries, we've got two Sister Missionaries who speak French." So, she called them that night, and they began teaching her.

She's really sacrificed a lot, as her family still does not know she has joined the church, but she's so firm and decided that she's going to be faithful to the light she's been given. She shared over the pulpit on Sunday a really powerful scripture:

"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace on Earth, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." - Matt. 10:34-39

In addition to that, Heavenly Father's blessed us with so many more people to teach. We worked really hard on Saturday morning, and were able to line up a ton of return appointments for this week. I made a special effort to pray before each person that we met on the street, and ask to know their needs so that I could teach according to that, and though I didn't notice a difference perhaps in the Spirit I felt, I noticed a marked difference in the results. One woman in front of us dropped her Oyster, (apparently an "Oyster" is short for Oyster card, which I think is something like a bus pass?) and so I ran to give it to her, and had to delay talking to her about the Church, since we were in front of another church, but I turned around to give her a "He is the Gift" card, and she explained about how she had been in the area for 5 years looking for a church she felt comfortable in, but was unable to find one. About an hour later, Elder Ocando stopped a YSA-age girl in the park who was so excited to see us, and talked about how she had met missionaries previously in Essex. She wanted us to come and teach her and her flatmates more about the Gospel, and the Christmas season. Solid, yeah?

"I told you it would all work out."

Up here we are doing really well, actually.. You know, this last week has been somewhat of a grind, but it helped me to see that the Lord always is there, and will always fulfil His promises to us.

President Millar has really been pushing that every area should be able to produce, at the least, 10 lessons a week. Since Elder Lika left, we've kind of been struggling to do so... While I was with him, I didn't have quite the opportunity to be as involved with all of our investigators, and so as soon as he left, a lot of our relationships kind of fell. In addition to that, we've been struggling to see some of our more solid investigators, which is pretty stressful. Anyway, this last week was rough... Cancelled appointments left and right, and even more than that, we struggled to make the appointments in the first place, as I couldn't get a hold of anybody... That along with moving left us at about 5 lessons on Saturday night.

I was going to just put this week behind us, and try harder the next week, but then we experienced a great miracle. So, the French girl, Kary, that the Sisters are teaching was going to a members house, and we were supposed to accompany with Phoebe and Maxwell, but they hadn't shown up to church... So, Bishop wanted to stop by them. We pulled a quick exchange with the other missionaries, and decided we would regroup later that night. It was amazing. We went to take the sacrament to a home-bound member, and her whole family was there. We taught them about the sacrament, held a mini-sacrament meeting with them, and figured out a time to come back. Then, we visited a woman who was previously an investigator, and came 1 week from getting baptized. Taught her a lesson, got a return appointment, and she recognizes that she needs to be baptized now. Then, popped by another investigator who had dropped off, gave her a blessing for her tonsillitis and set up communications with her again. Then, popped by Phoebe and Maxwell, and showed them "He is the Gift", which nearly made them cry. Oh, it was so wonderful. So flippin' amazing. By the end, we were about to have those 10 lessons... But the other guys didn't quite have one. Still, so boomin'.

Elder Smith and I ended up at a DA at the end with one of my favorite families in the ward, and as I was reflecting on the afternoon, and everything that had happened, the thought came to me: "I told you that it would all work out." and I just felt so good.

Yeah, so we moved flats! The new place is a million times better. It looks so great. I'd take pictures of the other flat for you just to show you the difference, but you don't need to witness that. We've got a gas cooker, and a dryer, and a balcony... They left two bikes there for us, and the bathroom's been redone... And we don't have heating currently, but we're working on that. The letting agent should be able to figure that out today. And it's so close to everything, even the river. We live right down the street from the grocery store, a million Portuguese shops, and a few of our members, and we live right above a DNA testing place, just in case we ever need to drug test our investigators! (Haha...)

Anyways...that's about it for this week...


I love you so much,

- Elder Green

Hyde Park, Elder Cook, and trying to stay focused with holiday distractions!

Man, congrats to Rory! I really hope that I'll be able to be there for his wedding. You know how much I look up to Scott and Rory both. I really owe them a ton. If I can't, though, maybe you can make one of those cardboard cutouts of me and take it along. (Not because it's that important that I'm in the pictures, but because it'd be sweet to have a cardboard cutout of myself.) Honestly, though, I'm very excited for my best friend.

We did have a pretty nice week. I'm grateful for the lessons learned therefrom, and Heavenly Father's patience with me... Honestly, Christmas season has got to be one of the most distracting things ever. I find I'm constantly being pulled from one side to another by someone saying, "Hey! Look at this! Hey! Over here! Hey! Look! Christmas! Thanksgiving! Home!" And man, it's not easy. I guess that's one of the challenges posed by living in a big city as a missionary. There's pretty advertisements everywhere, and connections to back home, and all sorts of exciting things that really aren't that important. But it's nice, kind of, having the opportunity of focusing and forgetting about all of this.

I've had a lot of help, too. Elder Cook's talk was great. We all had the opportunity of meeting him, which was great. His talk was mostly about the great history of missionary work here in England. It was cool to hear about his experience serving as Jeffrey R. Holland's companion here in the British Isles mission, and to hear about how he keeps in mind the importance of his calling. That was a great strength to me. He also left a blessing that we wouldn't be too concerned with the things that are going on at home, because our work here would be of far greater blessing to everyone we know than our involving ourselves in home matters. I have faith that will be true.

Me and "my cousin" Sister Green!

Hyde Park Stake Center

Eating lunch at Jimmy's!

In addition to that, we had Zone Training this week. One of the topics that was addressed was constant diligence, which I know is a challenge this month. But, it was addressed in such a good way. I was able to really feel the Spirit, and to recognize ways in which I can put that more in line, which I'm grateful for.

And then, to top it off, we went with James to the temple on Saturday. That was a blessing being able to see the progression he made there. But even beyond that, I was able to see a number of the people from previous wards. Chichester was there with the Youth, and a few of the people who just got baptized this last year, including John Turnbull that Elder Dyck was teaching while I was there. They were all getting ready to do baptisms for the dead, and it was really good to see that the ward is still going strong. Kind of helps me to feel like I was able to be the Lord's help there.

Elder Ocando, James, and me at the temple.

I remember reading scriptures when I was younger that said things like, "The Lord is our strength." and I thought, "Oh, that's nice." But, now I'm really starting to understand that. I see so-called "coincidences" too often, things that are there to help me grow and become stronger, or help me out when I'm struggling. And it's always exactly what I need. Yeah, sure, you can rationalize it by saying that I'm just adapting to the situations that life gives me, but I know otherwise.

Hmm, what else... Oh, thank you so much for the Thanksgiving dinner you sent. It was very much appreciated, as was the box of clams. I felt so cool walking around Brixton with a box full of clams. I was just hoping it would be the day someone mugged me, and I had to tell them, "I'm sorry, all I have in the box is this clam juice!" It would have made my day. I hope you get the video I sent, all the other guys were very appreciative of the dinner as well.

Mom had groceries delivered for us to make some of my
favorite "Thanksgiving" dishes from home.

Well, moving flat this week. We'll be moving up into Vauxhall on Friday, the ward's really excited that 1. We'll be in the ward boundaries, and 2. We'll be super close to a lot of the ward members. Oh, and it's exciting for us because the flat's apparently super nice. We get to tour it tomorrow.

Still really excited about the Christmas initiative the church is doing. Have you seen any of the ads for it yet? Take a look at my last post to see the Christmas video "He is the Gift."


Anyway, love you all,

- Elder Green

#ShareTheGift

Happy Thanksgiving!

So happy to get to baptize Steven Gutierrez today!

I'm glad you'll be having a nice Thanksgiving Dinner. I'm going to be missing green bean casserole this Thursday... Unless I make it myself. It doesn't look like anyone's invited us over, but we're thinking about maybe taking our lunch and dinner at around 7:00 or something, and I'll probably make whatever I can. If you want to send me any recipes (green bean casserole, your beautiful dinner rolls, stuffing...), hopefully I'll be able to print them off by the end of the day. I probably won't be able to cook a full turkey in that amount of time, but we'll find some way to make do.

Well, it's been pretty crazy all over the place this last week... Moves weeks usually are, but this one especially, it seems. Monday we had to get the other guys off to the train station, (we missed our first train when Elder Lika wanted to go visit one last person) and then Elder Smith and I were supposed to meet up with Elder Davies around 3:00 at the chapel. So, we ran and got kebabs for lunch, and then got a call from the Senior Couple saying that he wouldn't be there until about 6:00-ish... So, we only had time to go contacting that night and see one family, but it was good.

Tuesday was interesting... We were in a tri with one Elder from each area, so we tried to divide up the appointments evenly, but we had to spend a good part of the day getting stuff together for the flat... Our flat is, well it's not the greatest. When I came in we only had three spoons, and no proper knives. So, we've been improving it slowly. We might paint the bathroom soon, as it's pretty bad.

Wednesday was getting the new guys, eating french toast, cleaning the flat and picking up a few other necessities before the new missionaries turned up. Our missionaries are so good. Elder Ocando, my companion, is from the Canary Islands (named actually for the wild dogs on the island, not the birds), and he's really humble. We're trying to use Spanish as much as we can, but we've decided not to teach Spanish Investigators. Still, we contact them, and then refer them over to Kennington. The other two guys I live with are Elder Davies from Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, and Elder Turner from Stroud up north. Both are fantastic flatmates, and I really enjoy working around them. Over in Streatham are Elder Smith, who I've been with for a little while, and Elder Wheatley who's also from up north. So, Elder Smith and I are the lone Americans in the District...

The rest of the week we spent working. Quite a few appointments fell through, as usual, but in those gaps we were able to meet quite a few really great people. Saturday was especially testimony building when it came to that. The Zone Leaders have started up what they call "Consecration Saturdays", where we spend the first three hours of the day finding, and fasting for those hours. Well, we went out convinced that it was going to be a good day for finding, despite a bit of rain, and... Nothing. Well, I can't say nothing. We had four really good conversations in the three hours, but nothing really came of any of them. It seemed to be spaced just enough that I didn't give up hope. We tried a number of different ways of doing it. For part of it, I just stood in the middle of Clapham Common, played guitar for fifteen minutes, and then tried to talk to anyone who had been around, and it really softened a man named Claude's heart. But still, not much came of it.

After that, we went to the chapel, ate our bread and salami, and did some paperwork. I prayed to ask God for forgiveness for not working my hardest, but felt a confirmation that I had done what I needed to do. After a bit of work, I felt prompted that we needed to leave, and so we packed up and left the chapel. On our way out, over to an appointment, two men stopped me and asked if I would tune his guitar. One of them had dated an LDS girl as a teenager, and so knew a bit about the church. We invited them to a party at the church that night, and they actually turned up, which was great. They enjoyed it a lot, and promised to come to church, but didn't turn up. I have their phone number, though, so I'll continue to follow-up.

Stake Cultural Evening...I am representing Africa.

We also met another woman that same day named Violette, in about the same place. As we spoke to her about Eternal Families, and the Book of Mormon, she said, "Finally, someone who thinks the way that I do!" It was great, we asked if we could come around and she set the appointment herself, and gave us her number and everything.

It all just goes to show that the Lord has greater things in mind for everything.

I'm really excited for this next few weeks. I've started to notice a lot of members that really want to get their friends and family involved with the church, and so we're going to be working with about four different individuals/families and their friends to get things going.

Anyway, sorry, this is a long one. My legs are fine. They've improved greatly. We go running now every morning, which I couldn't do three months ago, my knees were far too weak. We'll be seeing Elder Cook tomorrow, and will be at the temple later this month -- I'm not sure what day. And as for a Christmas package, I did remember a few other things that would be very appreciated: the cuff-links I told you about with ampersands (&) on them, deodorant (it's terrible here: all they have is the spray on stuff, so a few sticks of SpeedStick), and Altoids. Honestly, that's about it.

Well, love you so much!

- Elder Green

"Come Unto Me"...A Lesson Learned

Well, best news first...Elder Quentin L. Cook's coming next week, and so we'll be going North of the river to Hyde Park to see him. Fantastic, yeah?

So things here are starting to pick up quite nicely. As I've noted, it's been a rough transfer... I've really struggled. Not because of difficulty in the work, or personal problems, but we've had difficulty within the District, and as District Leader, that's always hard. And it can be difficult when you work so hard the entire transfer, praying, and seeking counsel from the Zone Leaders, and praying again, and talking to the District---and you don't see a change. Or you do, and then it goes back to how it was.

But, this is what the Lord helped me to understand from it, and I only realized this over the weekend at Stake Conference: There's a scripture in the eleventh chapter of Matthew that I've come to love on my mission, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

The Lord says that His yoke is easy and his burden light, but being yoked in the first place means that you're working. And we'll work, and the burden will be there, and we'll struggle. We honestly will.

But, what He promises is rest unto our souls.

That's important.

When the transfer's over, and you look at the work that's been done, and you've fought and struggled and prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed, and you've done everything that the Lord asked you to... And it still doesn't work? Then you can rest assured because the Holy Ghost will testify to you that you have done what you could, and you have worked your hardest.

I love this transfer, difficult though it was, because I came so much closer to the Lord through it, and I gained so much thereby. Last week was the best week we've had all transfer. All. Transfer. We saw so much progression: We have another investigator (James) who's now committed to baptism on the 20th of December. We found him because he wanted to learn to play the piano, and so I've been teaching him that part time, and teaching him the gospel more than part time (wouldn't Sister Findlay, and Brittany, and Billie Jo be proud!). Phoebe's really excited about everything we teach her, and Maxwell is willing to come back to church, and is getting ready to baptize her. She's so great, every time we visit, she either says, "Hey, Javin, when you're Elder Green's age, you can be a missionary just like him!" or, "Wait, so can I go volunteer in the temple? Can I get my Grandmother's work done?". We find new people every day, and I'm able to use my talents to find them.


Going away party at the Santana's with the BYU Sisters.

Of course, with plenty of Guarana.

Oh, and the Lord's been blessing me on the side with inspiration for music, so I've finished another song, with yet another almost done.

So, now Elder Ocando and I get to strike up a new transfer, and figure out how to use the Spanish Members in this area... It'll be a fun adventure. Elder Smith and I are really excited to see what happens.

I love this Gospel; I love the Lord; I'm so glad to be here, even though it's hard, sometimes.

Anyway, love you!

- Elder Green

P.S. I finally made it.


I saw this... and I just had to...

I'm here.