Transfers are Rhyl

Transfers! Me and elder Korth will be staying together in Rhyl! I'm very excited we were both hoping to stay so we are happy. (: We will also be getting a new set of elders in Rhyl! That will be different and crazy but I'm sure it will be great. (: Elder Ravn just finished being trained and will be training an elder coming in today! It will be great. (: We are going to go pick them up later and help them get to their flat and such. Also sorry for not letting you all know that P-day is Tuesday not Monday this week. Every transfer week P day will be Tuesday. 

We had a great week! Monday we didn't do much kinda just hung out and did some shopping, got haircuts. 

Tuesday we had our last district meeting! It was really good, and we later found out Elder Kaonohi our district leader will be leaving us. All good though. There's nothing else really to report: tracting with no luck and ward council, it was a good day though. District meeting was great though.

Wednesday we had first five weeks! It was a meeting for all the trainers and trainees. It was super good. So good to see a lot of my friends from the MTC. Stinkin MTC friends who went to Leeds and Scotland and Australia. They should have come here. Haha all good though. (: But yeah the meeting was super good, had a really great spirit, and lots of really good trainings. Oh yeah we took the train there and when we got to our stop we grabbed our stuff and got off the train. Elder Chilpagiri was like whose is this? He had grabbed somebodys bag by accident that wasn't ours. So he jumped back on the train and casually walked and put it back. Then casually walked back to the exit. The doors were closed and off he went. Haha it was hilarious. So the three of us walked to the next stop and picked him up. Good ole Elder Chilpagiri. (: We got back that night at 11:20 after waking up at 5 that morning. It stinks living so far away from the mission meetings. (:

On the way back from five weeks meeting.

Thursday we had exchanges. Elder Kaonohi came here to Rhyl again with me. Thursday night we had a lesson with Sian. We brought our ward mission leader brother Lowe as well. It was such a good lesson it had a great spirit. Sian really desires to find that faith in God, and we really focused on Gods love for her and her family. She is definitely progressing. She gave us a bunch of goodies as usual. She's the best. (: We are very excited to see their fam again this week. 

Friday morning me and Elder Kaonohi tracted and found some people with some pretty good potential and a former member named Gwen. She was less active but someone came to her house years ago and asked if she was coming to church again. She said probably not so the man had her sign her records away. Ridiculous. Pretty messed up. Apparently it happens here though. She still believes the church is true but her husband is catholic and it makes it tough. Hopefully we can help her back though. (: The rest of the day was pretty good, not much to report.

Saturday we had a street display which was pretty good. We got a couple new investigators so that should be good. (: We did some tracting in Prestatyn then went to tea with David and Debbie. They are the ones we went to Conwy castle with a couple weeks back. It was great. 

Sunday was church as usual. The rest of the day was alright. We got transfer calls and found out we are both staying. We are excited. (: I did not want to leave Rhyl so it should be good. We are getting a new district leader as well more elders in Rhyl, and they are opening another area in our district. So our district got way bigger. Should be fun. (:

Monday we did a blitz in Abergale with the Colwyn Bay elders since Elder Kaonohi was leaving. It was good to see them before he left. Had tea at Mcdonalds. Good ole Mcdonalds.

Abergale Castle

Watchtower selfie over the edge. No worries, I was mad safe. (:

Today was P-day and Graham and Chez took us to a castle in Abergale. We couldn't actually go in the castle but we hiked all over the woods and went to a nearby watch tower and some caves nearby. It was quite the adventure, getting lost in the woods and such. (: It was super super fun. Tonight we will be going to Colwyn Bay to pick up the elders coming to Rhyl. Should be fun. (: I hope you all have a great week! Deuces!

Love, Elder Dallen Edwards

Graham and Chez and Alex. Cave salfie. They are hilarious. (:

A solid horse. (:

I wish I was better at making Subject lines

Hello! This week went by crazy fast. We're one week away from transfers!! That is nuts. The MTC took an age and a half but this transfer has gone so fast. Crazy. I kind of hope I stay in Rhyl but will be happy with whatever I get. (:

I talked about Monday a little bit in my last email but whatever. (: Monday was great! Like I said Sian and Rob took us all over wales and it was great! She is mad smart. Knows like everything there is to know. It was a lot of fun. That night we had tea at the McAllisters, a family who just moved to Prestatyn (a city close to Rhyl) from California. Their daughter was in the Preston MTC the same time I was! Small world. They literally live in a cottage. It's crazy. It's been in their family for over a hundred years. They took us on a tiny hike up to a lookout because they live kind of above Prestatyn. What a beaut! We could see the sea, Rhyl, Colwyn Bay and it was the best. Then we had a great meal in their little cottage. Elder Korth was saying he felt like he was in the little house on the prairie or something. It was great. (:

The view from close to the McAllister's cottage.

Tuesday we had zone meeting and it was Elder Chilpagiri's birthday!! The senior couple in our zone Sister Hillam made 3 cakes and so we had a surprise party thing for him after the meeting. It was fun. (: Me and Elder Korth made him a birthday hat with a piece of paper, tape, and dental floss to hold it on. It was a good time Elder Chilpagiri is the best. (: We tracted some that afternoon but nobody was interested. There was some nice people though. (: We had tea at Graham and Chez's and had burgers. They always feed us a LOT. 2 thumbs up. (: We visited a family in the ward Sabrina and Carsen. Sabrina is the mom and has a heart condition and Carsen has some sort of disability where he is in a wheelchair. He's the funniest kid in the world. Its tough for them to get to church because of their health, but Sabrina was there yesterday! It was good to see her there.

Wednesday we finally got to see Paul again! He opened the door and invited us right in. We'd just talked to him outside the times before. He is the nicest man and is really interested in what we have to say. He has some reservations being brought up a Catholic but we taught the Restoration and it was really really good. I love the part of the lesson where we recite Joseph's words in the first vision. So good. Paul is very willing to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. Hopefully his work will allow us to meet with him soon. After Paul we went to Prestatyn and went to see our Investigator Craig. It was good to see him and Jo. He want's to be baptized now that they are married, but doesn't want to rush it. And they really don't like being pushed we can tell that from the past 9 years Craig has been taught. So hopefully we can approach it in a good way and help him want to get baptized soon. (: We did some finding that day and tried by a couple of people but nothing else really eventful happened. Oh yeah we had tea at the Boome's. They are the best. They serve good food too. (:

Elder Korth & Elder Edwards.

Thursday was weekly planning as per usual. Our flat is right next to a school so during studies and weekly planning it is always a madhouse out there. Little kids wrestling and just going crazy. Its distracting because they are so entertaining to watch. (: We visited Yasmin who was baptised a couple of months ago. We stayed on the porch because we couldn't go in. We had a good lesson with a Mormon message. She has a lot of interesting views so it's always interesting teaching her. (: But she's great. We did some tracting but nobody was interested, we then had tea at the Jones's. They are also the best. (: Apparently they had called us that morning to cancel because she wasn't feeling well but they had the wrong number for us. So we felt a little bad but they were glad we came because she felt better that afternoon. They got fish n chips takeout. I love fish n chips. Like a lot. 

With Sian & Rob.

Friday after studies we helped the Jolliffes move. It was nice to wear some basketball shorts and a T shirt tee hee. But yeah we helped them move. Not really sure what else to say about it. (: After lunch we headed to Mostyn. Long bus ride. Nice nap. I'm always tired. Probably a good thing though cause it means were going hard! Haha. (: We tracted for a couple hours with no luck. Then we headed to Sian and Rob's for tea and a lesson. The food was so stinkin good. Sian is a great cook. On monday she had been telling us how to cook steak properly. She said "You show it to the grill". Exact words. She cooks them blue which is less than rare. Apparently it's quite the art. She's going to cook us blue steaks sometime so I'm pretty excited. Gonna eat some raw meat! Our lesson was good we showed the restoration video and talked a lot about Joseph Smith. It was pretty good. We found out that she doesn't believe Jesus actually did all the miracles and such and all the bible stories. She thinks it's all just metaphors. And she has a hard time believing that God is a man. She more tends to believe in a higher power like nature. So hopefully we can help her gain that testimony that God is there and loves her, same as Jesus Christ. But she's great. Rob isn't super interested but he plays minecraft during the lessons and listens so at least he's listening. (: The jehovah's witnesses weren't happy with her that she went to our chapel for a tour. (: Haha. She was going to come to church yesterday but she wasn't there and we haven't heard from her. Hopefully everything is ok. Sian and Rob have 2 kids Carys and Sarin. Carys is 12 and Sarin is 5. They are great, Sarin is the cutest! They have a little pug who licks my face a lot (i can handle the hand licking but face licking was a little too much for me especially when Sian told me he eats his own poop sometimes) and they have like 5 cats. They like animals. They are all the best. 

Saturday me and Elder Korth went to good ole Mcdonalds for lunch in Abergale then the Colwyn Bay elders got there and we tracted. There was this 24 year old dude that was crazy interested in me being from America. He was funny. He told me I need to get some better looking shoes. He wasn't funny. Haha it's all good though I wasn't bothered. (: Me and Elder Kaonohi tracted into Zoe and she was pretty interested. Abergale is in Colwyn Bay's area so they'll be following up with her. Tracting saturday night we met a man named Joe. He's 78 years old and the funniest person I have ever met. We were all just laughing the whole time we talked to him. He wants us to come back so he can teach us the Gospel of Joe. I don't think we will get anywhere with him. (:

Sunday we had church as usual. It was good. Weekly coordination meeting with Brother Lowe (ward mission leader) was great as always. He is so good. And so excited and willing to help us with everything which is the best. We tracted Trevor road in prestatyn that afternoon. I think they had a "Lets all be as rude as we possibly can to the mormons" meeting right before we came. We always have rude people and it's no biggie but literally every single house was an adventure. Gotta love it! (: No worries though. We had a roast dinner at the wades. The best. I love roast dinners. The Wades are also the best. (:

Our fresh new cuts.

P-Day today! We really needed haircuts so we went to Eddie's barbershop. This Jamiacan man cut my hair. I told him how long to cut the sides and just to trim the top but he basically cut my entire head off. Mad short. Can't believe I trusted a random person to cut my hair, shoutout to mom for always killin the haircuts! Also I didn't understand a word he said. So I said a lot of yeps and mm hmms. But I realized now i kind of like the haircut so no worries. (:

I spent a lot more time on this email than last weeks so i hope you enjoy it! Love you all!

Love, Elder Edwards

No idea what to have the subject be

This week was killer! Super busy and went crazy blazin fast. Also just letting you know my mission president doesn't let us say cool or awesome and a bunch of other stuff so that's why I use lame words like neat and great and nice all the time. Haha just kidding they aren't lame words its all good. (:

Monday was killer. We went to Conwey Castle with the Colwyn Bay Elders and a less active and her recent convert son, Debbie and David. They are my favorite. They're the best eva. But Conwey was great I loved it. Also sorry I'm super crazy short on email time so i'll do the best i can.

With Elder Korth, Colwyn Bay Elders, Debbie, and David.

David longing for freedom. Conwey Castle.

Elders Kaonohi, Korth, and Edwards.

Tuesday and Wednesday we had exchanges again. This time Elder Kaonohi came here to Rhyl and Elder Korth went to Colwyn Bay with Elder Chilpagiri. Exchanges were fun, lots of finding with no luck. Elder Kaonohi is an animal he ate like all the food in our flat. (: Then after exchanges on Wednesday me and Elder Korth headed to Mostyn for Tea at Sian and Rob's. Tea was super good, then we started the lesson bit. She had read all the way to Alma. Nuts! She's the best. We didn't even really teach a straight lesson, we just answered all the questions she had from reading but it was super good. She definitely knows that the J Dubs aren't for her. Thanks goodness! (: 

A house that everyone else took pictures by so why not eh? (:

Thursday we woke up at 4:30 and took a train to Manchester where Elder Leimer from the Quorum of the 70 was doing a mission tour. It was from 10-4 and it was amazing!!! I loved it! Seriously so good, so much amazing insight, super strong spirit and all that good stuff. We had tea with the Colwyn Bay elders in Manchester then traveled back and got back to our flat at like10:15 or so. It was a long day. But a great one. (:

Im so short on email time so i'll say that on friday we did some stuff.

Saturday night Sian and Rob and kids came to the chapel for a tour and some teaching. They seemed to really enjoy it. We brought Graham a less active along and told him we'd have him share his conversion story. But he took over and talked about everything under the sun. Oh boy. We probably won't have him fellowship again but it was all good. They still seemed to really enjoy it. (:

A boy and a castle.

Today on P-day, Sian and Rob took us all over Wales. It was bomb. We saw Castle ruins and lakes and all sorts of Welsh History. Sian knows everything there is to know about everything you could ever want to know. (: It was really fun. We saw the ruins of Sherrif Knottingham's castle from the robin hood stories. We also talked a lot about the plan of salvation while driving from place to place. And later Sian brought up the word of wisdom and thinks she can do it and we hadn't even taught her about that. She was also wondering what she needs to do to get baptised! (: We haven't even extended an invitation yet which we need to do. 

Sorry about the rushed email, Love you all have a great week! (:

Love, Elder Edwards

What else? (:

A solid week in Rhyl

Hello everyone! I hope your all doing super good. We had a great week this week and I am excited to tell about it. (:

Monday we went to the temple and that basically took up our whole P-Day. It was super great though i loved it. (: 

Tuesday we had district meeting then afterward we went on exchanges. It was great! I went to Colwyn Bay to be with Elder Kaonohi and Elder Chilpagiri went to Rhyl to be with Elder Korth. We had a great time. Elder Kaonohi is the district leader so we traveled super far by train to the sisters area so he could do a baptismal interview for their investigator. His name is Robert and he is great and passed. (: We finally got back to Colwyn Bay at 8:50ish and walking back to the flat I said hello to a man who promptly went off on us. Screaming some very not good stuff about missionaries who stopped him a little while ago to talk. He was really upset. Lots of threats too. I wasn't worried though, Elder Kaonohi is a big islander from Hawaii, he's pretty buff. Haha so i wasn't worried. That was kinda crazy though. 

Wednesday we did service in Colwyn Bay for a member. I got to trim hedges. It was super fun and i actually want to trim hedges for a living now instead of wallpaper hanging. It was pretty enjoyable. (: With this nice machine thing.Then we tracted some, then ended exchanges. Then me and Elder Korth Tracted. (:

Thursday was AMAZING! I'll start from the beginning. We had asked our ward mission leader to pray for somewhere for us to go and on Sunday he told us Mostyn. Mostyn is ages away by bus so we didn't really make any plans to get out there. Then on Thursday we got a referral on mormon.org and it was in Mostyn! SO we dropped our plans and took the hour bus ride there. The referral was fake. We were kind of disappointed but decided to just tract a random street since we were there. As we were tracting this tiny little street a woman came out and said "I have been waiting for you!" We were like what. She invited us in, her husband Rob was there, and gave us a drink and just told us all about how she's been searching for truth and has been waiting for Mormon missionaries to come to her house. She's been studying with Jehovah's Witnesses and enjoyed it a lot but doesn't think it's for her. She was so so excited. She said a while ago she started researching demon stuff and realized that with all the darkness in the world there had to be a light. And that's when she started searching for religion. Her name is Sian and she is amazing! We answered a ton of questions and shared some scriptures and all sorts of stuff. She invited us back for tea (tea is dinner) this Wednesday so we will go have tea and teach her a lesson too. She also wants to take us around the beautiful places of wales on a P-day. Me and Elder Korth are so excited and are praying that the lesson will go well and that we will have the spirit with us. This was crazy and amazing. Miracles happen! (:

There are so many windmills out in the ocean. I think it's super neat. (:

Friday showed us that amazing days don't happen every day. (: Jamie and Karen weren't home for our appointment and we haven't been able to contact them. So we tracted a ton that day. A bunch of 5 or 6 year olds or something were following us door to door calling us losers. So we bailed on that street and went to a different one. (: When we were having a kind of good lesson with a lady a bunch of chavs (what they call teenagers who cause trouble) walked by and were yelling all sorts of crude things. That was lame. Also sidenote but EVERYONE thinks we are Jehovah's Witnesses. It kinda stinks but they are usually happy when they learn that we aren't haha. (:

Saturday we did a blitz with the Colwyn Bay elders and I left it 160% soaked. My rain jacket isn't amazing. (: All good though. 

Sunday night was a mission fireside. It was so good. Recent Converts and the president speak at it. (: It was great.

I have like 2 pictures. Sorry!!!! We are going to a castle this afternoon so hopefully i'll have some good pics. Have a great week all!

Love, Elder Edwards

Keeping it real in Rhyl.

This week has been pretty crazy. Met lots of crazy people to go along with my crazy week. (: Tuesday we had a zone meeting here in Rhyl which was really good. We then tracted most of the day but stopped by some investigators Jamie and Karen. We haven't had an official sit down lesson with them but we are going to on Friday. Should be good, Jamie is Karen's son and has been reading the Book of Mormon and seems really interested. We had dinner at Graham and Chez's that night and they wanted me to do a flip because Elder Korth brought it up. So I kinda failed a sideflip in my slacks on the concrete but there was no scratches or tears on my trousers so we were all good. (:

We went to the temple this morning for bank holiday which was great. (:

Wednesday was great we met with Paul and hes been reading the Book of Mormon and is interested and had lots of great questions. I'm excited about it. But he works like crazy so were not sure when we'll be able to meet with him next. Hopefully soon though. We mostly tracted the rest of the day but did have dinner with a recent convert David and his mom Debbie. It was great, David is super funny. But yeah a lot of tracting. (:

Thursday was weekly planning so we were in the flat till 1. Then did lots more tracting which was an absolute blast. (: We had dinner with some members, the Wades. They were great. We had a meeting that night with an investigator Hillary. She is pretty old. She asked us to pray that she can look young again and gave us some poems she wrote about how God is awesome, cool and a dj. Later she texted we will never make her be a Mormon. So we probably won't meet with her again. (:

Trying to eat a massive spider.

Friday there's not really anything to report we did a lot of tracting and travelling by bus took ages because Rhyl was crazy busy. We had dinner with the Jones's which was great they were super nice. (:

Saturday was my month mark! Crazy. It feels like so much longer yet not. Its pretty weird. We had a street display. It was really good but I got stuck talking to this man for literally an hour. I told him so many times I had to go but he just kept talking and talking telling me about all his life of casting out demons and praying in king Arthur's chair and vice grips and everything in between. His third time coming back he told me God had told him to take a Book of Mormon which he previously rejected in an exchange for a book he brought me that God instructed him to give me. Its enquire within upon everything. He said it will make me a chief elder within 4 years and contains a cure. So that was really something. 

But we found 6 new investigators who we will be meeting with soon so we will see how that will go. We also went to an investigators wedding that night which apparently missionaries have been waiting for for 10 years because he's been with his girlfriend for that long. So hopefully he'll become serious about baptism now. (:

Sunday was good but I'm running out of email time and there's not much to report. Have a great week all!

Elder Edwards

Rhyl!

This week has been crazy! And its been great! I was going to bring my journal so i could remember everything we did but I completely forgot it. Dang sorry. I'll try my best to remember. 

A great view.

Last Wednesday was like high 70's temperature wise so it wasn't terrible, but it was crazy humid. Super humid. And the houses don't have AC because they don't need it often so the houses are almost more humid than outside. But it was sunny all day and we enjoyed the sun. We did a lot of tracting with no luck, and had an appointment to teach an investigator, Maggie, at the chapel but she didn't show and she hasn't been answering her phone so that's kind of lame. But all good. (: We went to KFC that night with a recent convert David and his mom Debbie. It was really good.

Thursday was great. We hung wallpaper at Graham and Chez's house, less active members, for 5 hours I think it was. And Thursday was super humid again. So the house was so humid. But we were in service clothes so it wasn't as bad as the usual clothes. (: It was good though, I'm a wallpaper hanging professional now so I think that's what I'm going to do for a living after the mission. They fed us KFC haha. It was really good. In the time we had while not doing service we tracted without really any luck. I fell right asleep both nights. Every night actually haha, missionary work is tiring. 

For blankets they just use duvets here, which is like a cross between
a pillow and blanket. I bought a great dinosaur duvet cover. (:

Friday poured and poured all morning. Just dumping. Or chucking it down as they say here. (: We traveled to Abergale to do a blitz, which is the 4 elders splitting up and tracting a bigger area, with the Elders from Colwyn Bay. So I went with Elder Kaonohi from Hawaii who is Elder Chilpagiri's trainer and he's from India. And Elder Korth, my trainer, went with Elder Chilpagiri. That was a lot of fun. We had some good conversations but not really any new investigators. And it was still pouring. We ate lunch with them then Elder Korth and I snagged a bus back to Rhyl. We tracted more in the pouring rain with some crazy people answering the doors, then finally a man named Paul answered. He seemed really interested, and asked all the perfect questions like worried about not being with his kids forever, and babies dying before being baptised. He even talked about how hes been waiting for a sign, and said the book of mormon we gave him might be it. Haha so that was great. We're going by this Wednesday. I'm excited hopefully hes been reading. And when we were done talking to him the skies had cleared and it had stopped raining. And i thought the weather was crazy in Utah. (: We mostly just had more tracting that day with on and off rain.

Elders Edwards, Chilpagiri, Korth, Kaonohi.

Saturday we tracted a lot. I'm having a hard time remembering but there wasn't really anything to report. It rained and was super windy for much of the day.

Sunday was great, we went to church and it was really good. Funny how Sunday's don't feel any different. Haha every day just feels like a missionary day. We had tea (which is what they call dinner here) at Graham and Chez's that less active family I talked about. The plates were massive and just piled high with potatoes, meat, stuffing thingies, veggies, and buckets and buckets of gravy. It was so good. Then we taught their kids the plan of salvation, and some of their kids want to be baptized so Graham is going to find a date for them to be baptized soon. Not much else to report, just tracted and was excited to sleep when that time came. (: It was sunny then rainy then sunny then rainy all day. (:

Some door.

This morning was the first time we got out of the flat for exercise, we jogged to a field and did some exercises there. That was great. I did a lot of flips too which was great fun. Right now we are just hanging out at the church with the Colwyn bay elders. Love you all have a great week!

Love, Elder Edwards

Dinosaur duvet cover selfie. (:

England Manchester Mission

Dear Parents,

Your son has arrived in the England Manchester Mission (EMM) safely and is ready to go to work as a missionary...

President & Sister Mark D. Ulrich with
Elder Edwards