Christmas in England

Hello everyone!

I hope you all had a magical Christmas. Christmas here in England was so wonderful, and I loved being able to skype my family. It was so good to talk to you all! 

We had a really lovely Christmas zone conference in London on the 17th. We had some really spiritual messages and musical numbers. After that we played a lot of fun Christmas games and everyone wore Christmas jumpers. President and Sister Stevens got us all pillowcases with the England London mission logo printed on them. It was such a fun zone conference! 

Straight after the conference I got to go on exchange with the sister training leaders. So Sister Swann andSsister Rank came back to Ashford, and I went with sister Fenu to Isford. The exchange was super fun and I really learned a lot from working with Sister Fenu.

I love Christmas time so much, but it is a rough time for finding. Apparently no one wants to be stopped by two missionaries right before Christmas. And as most of our investigators were on holidays, it was brutal trying to do missionary work. We ended up seeing a lot of less active members and visiting members in the ward. 

On Christmas Eve we did a lot of service with some members. We baked a ton of cookies and gave them away to people who might need a bit of cheering up this Christmas; and let's be honest, we ate a lot of them too.  That evening we had a carol concert at the church, where the whole ward gathered to sing carols. I love how much music can bring the Christmas spirit. After the carol concert, the bishop called all the missionaries up to the front. And I just want to say how amazing the ward is here in Ashford, because the whole ward had pitched in and bought us a huge box full of food, sweets, and gifts to make sure our first Christmas away from home was special. I don't think any of our eyes were dry. I was so touched and humbled by the ward and what they did for us. I love the people here in Ashford! 

For Christmas day, we spent the morning with Sister King and watched Big Hero 6 and Frozen. We had such a fun time with her! That evening we were with another family, the Drews. It was so much fun and we just felt included in their family. We played the cardboard box game, which is when you have to bend down and pick up a box off of the floor with only your mouth, and only your feet are allowed to touch the floor. The boys and the girls tied. We all got a bit stretched out and were really sore! 

We were expecting to transfer this week, but had a surprise call that transfers have been moved to next week, so I get to spend a extra week in Ashford! 

I hope you all had a really great Christmas! I love you all. Have a great week! 

Love, 

Sister McFarland 

Five Months!

Sister Swann and I passed our five month mark this week! It is so
crazy to think that we have been out that long already. Sister Swann
and I being the same age in the mission, it was fun to have our five
month mark together.

We had a district goal to find one new investigator every day for the
next week. At first we thought this was a crazy goal because we have
been struggling to find people to teach. But we really saw miracles
and we found so many people.

We had a ward Christmas party this week, which was really fun. We
watched the first presidency Christmas devotional. During the
devotional we were sitting by our investigator Lisa and her two little
girls Paris and London, who did not want to sit and watch the
devotional. So Sister Swann and I went to the back of the room with
them and brought out notebooks and sticky notes to colour with. They
loved it and were having a lot of fun. Soon other kids started
noticing how much fun we were having and wanted to join in too, so
then we ended up drawing with a bunch of kids in the back of the room,
and it became really hard to keep them all entertained with sticky
notes and pens.

Other than that it has been a surprisingly chill week. I am getting so
excited for Christmas! Sister Swann and I have been practicing singing so
that we can go caroling when we go tracting. I freaking love Christmas!
Love you all! I hope you have an amazing week and a Merry Christmas!

Sister McFarland

Pictures: 1. Helping make Christmas decorations
2. Drawing with Paris and London

Twins...Sister Swann x 2

I have a problem. I keep losing things. Like my badge. How I can lose
something that is always on me I have no idea. But the other day we
were in town and I was introducing myself and pointed to my badge as I
was saying my name, only do realize that I didn't have a badge! So I
have been borrowing Sister Swann's badge until I can get a new one.
Hopefully that will be really soon. So it has been confusing for
everyone we meet who sees that we are both Sister Swann, so once I
just said we were sisters.

We set up our Christmas tree last p-day. Our landlord was very kind
and got us a tree and some decorations. We are so excited for
Christmas! Town centre is all decorated with lights and a big tree. It
really brings the Christmas spirit. I love the church's Christmas
initiative "A Saviour is born." We have been sharing it with people we
meet. I would love to challenge you to invite someone to watch the
video, either by sharing it online or with a friend. This time of year
people are more open to learn about the true meaning of Christmas,
Jesus Christ. I love Christmas!

Tomas is doing well and is really excited for his baptism next week!
We are so excited for him. He is a great guy!

We had stake conference this week, so yesterday for church we were in
Gillingham at the stake centre. It was a really good meeting!

Sorry for the boring email, but not that much else has happened this
week. We just met a lot of weird people... But that is just part of
missionary life!

I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Love,
Sister McFarland

Reunited!

This week was great because Sister Swann and I are reunited. The old MTC companionship is back together. We have both really changed and learned so much in the past 4 months. And what better way to start off the transfer than by crashing your bike on your first day together? Haha, luckily Sister Swann is training to be a nurse and took care of me.

Sister Swann is so fun to be around. she even makes tracting fun! We play a game where we give each other a word that you try to say during the conversation-words like cupcake, steering wheel, rubbish, and lightbulb, haha so that makes it very interesting.
 

They don't celebrate Thanksgiving in England, but in honour of the Thanksgiving spirit my finding question of the day was  "What are you thankful for? "

I am so thankful for this gospel. It has brought me so much comfort and direction in my life and I love it so much! I am so thankful for the Book of Mormon and that we have a living prophet on the earth today.  I know that the church is true and I am so thankful for the opportunity I have to share it! 

I love you all and am so thankful for you. 

Love,

Sister McFarland 

Transfers

Hello! It is another transfer, and Sister Hernes will be leaving to

Colchester while I am here in Ashford for another transfer! I will be
reunited with my old MTC companion, Sister Swann! So this day is going
to be a bit crazy as we get ready for transfers tomorrow.

Sister Hernes and I finished our transfer together with a bang! We had
a really great week and taught so many amazing people.
After a long time of struggling to find anyone to teach, we finally
have been teaching some really great people.

Last Friday we stopped a YSA age man in town and asked him what would
make him more happy than having a million pounds. He answered that he
would like to buy a huge mansion and fill it with homeless people.
What a great answer right? The conversation continued and he told us
it actually was quite crazy that we stopped him that day and started
talking about God. He said that after a long time where he had lost
his faith, things recently happened that made him start to believe in
God again! And here we came! We invited him to church and ended up
teaching him Lesson 1 the day after. I've rarely had more spiritual
first lessons with anyone as we had with him. And he came to church
and loved it the day after too and accepted a conditional baptismal
invitation to prepare for the 20th of December! He is just so
prepared! The Lord is blessing this area! 

In addition to that, we have been teaching Lisa, who is a young mum
who just moved here from Margate. She has been taught by the
missionaries there and loves church! When she found out when and where
the church is, she came with her children and had a great time.

I am going to miss Sister Hernes a lot. She has been great to serve
with. But I'm excited to get to be here another transfer in the
blessed land of Ashford!

Have a great week!
- Sister McFarland

England, USA, and Nepal

This week was great!
On Wednesday we had zone conference in London. So we got up really
early to drive there with our zone leaders. Zone conference is when we
meet with a couple of other zones and with the president and have
great trainings and we all feel inspired. It takes up most of the day.
This was my second zone conference as we have them every other
transfer. On the way home, we got stuck in such bad traffic that we
were in London for 3 hours! But we made the most of it. We just said,
"How often are we going to be stuck in traffic in the middle of
London! This is so cool!" And we also sang at the top of our lungs. We
got to see some pretty cool things on the way home.  It was quite fun!

This week we met this man named John. And two things that really bug
John are religion and Americans. And there I am as a missionary with
the most American accent you've ever heard. Ha-ha, but we were able to
teach him a bit and gave him a Book of Mormon. But while he made fun
of the USA, all I could say was " God bless America!"

We had a cool miracle this week! We met this lovely Nepalis girl in
town awhile ago who was interested in the Book of Mormon. And we also
had another man who we met while tracking who wanted to learn more.
They both live on the same street so we went to stop by to see both of them,
only to realize that they have the same address! He is her father!
Ha-ha, it was so cool! When we stopped by, they had just gotten home
from a Nepalis festival. They invited us in and gave us so much
Nepalis food! I really felt like I had just stepped into Nepal. It was
different but really good. They are such nice people.

Well I love you all! I hope you are having a great week. Thanks for
all your love and support!

Cheers,
- Sister McFarland

So the pictures,
1. We found this reindeer while doing our weekly shopping and thought
it was fun.
2. Driving on tower bridge!
3. Our friends from Nepal.

Guy Fox

I hope you all had a great week! Today is my four month mark! It's so
crazy! I can't believe it has been four months since I started my
adventure.

This week was really good for us. The 5th of November is a holiday
here because once a guy named Guy Fox tried to burn down the House of
Parliament, but was caught and burned at the stake. So everyone has
big bonfires to celebrate. Seems a bit weird for me but it was fun. We
didn't go to any bonfires, as it was raining a lot and we had some
appointments. But there have been a lot of fireworks.  This Sunday was
Remembrance Sunday, where we remember all those who died in war.
Everyone buys paper poppies to wear in remembrance and on Sunday they
observe two minutes of silence at 11:00. Also on the 11th which is the day and
time World War One ended. So both the 11th and the Sunday before get
remembered.

This week sister Hernes and I had a really crazy adventure! Sister
Hernes was making some phone calls while I was cooking dinner. I was
putting some fish into a frying pan with some oil. And apparently the
oil was too hot because when I put in the fish it started to spray hot
oil. When I grabbed the pan to pull it off of the stove, the whole
thing burst into flames! Like, really big scary flames. Sister Hernes
was on the phone with an investigator at the time, and he thought we
were dying cause we were both screaming. I dropped the pan on the
floor and ran to grab the fire blanket. By this time the fire alarm
was going off, but the fire had already gone out. So, we had our own
little bonfire.

So it turns out that when leaves get wet they are really slippery. I
came off my bike twice yesterday while coming home from a dinner
appointment, I was pretty lucky and didn't get hurt, I just have some
nice bruises. But, I lost my badge again when I fell... I had just
barely gotten a new one... Aw well. Is it too much to ask for a third
miracle badge? :)

On Saturday we had a mission wide fast. It was really amazing and we
saw a lot of miracles happen. We met so many amazing people!
This week I am ponderizing 2 nephi 2:22-25.

I hope you all have a wonderful week! Love you!
Love, sister McFarland

(This picture is from our landlord after she came to check out the

                                                                        flat from the fire.. Haha :)

Colds and Halloween

Happy Halloween! I hope you all had a spooky time and got lots of
candy. This week Sister Hernes and I have both had colds. We are
recovering well and feel better now. But let me tell you, biking in
fog on a cold October night is not the best thing to do when you are
recovering from a cold.

For Halloween, we were unsure what to do. People here do celebrate
Halloween, but it's not nearly as big as in the states. We couldn't
really go tracting, and everyone was busy that night so we didn't
have any appointments. So we bought a bunch of candy, taped them to
pass along cards, and handed them out to kids trick or treating. It
was fun! The only problem was that we ran out of sweets really
quickly. Then we were stuck in the park with a bunch or candles and a
table with no candy. We decided to stop by some members just to say
hi, but it was quite funny because we were just carrying a table
around. Fortunately it was Halloween and you can look really weird and
no one will care. Something different we do for Halloween here is
fireworks. Other than that it is the same.

The English class is going well. We have 2 members who teach, and they
love it. They really have taken the class to a whole new level. We
really are just there for the first ten minutes when we teach about

the church.

The ward here is a lot like the Robinsons from 'Meet the Robinsons'
(one of my all time favourite movies) because nearly everyone in the
Ashford ward is related to each other somehow. I'm still figuring out
how everyone is related to each other, but it makes the whole ward
feel like a big family.

Well I love you all! I hope you have a great week.

Love,
Sister McFarland

How to Park a Car

Hello! Another week has flown by! We had a miracle this week where all
clocks magically changed, and we got an extra hour of sleep. That was
a great day. The other side of that though is that it now gets dark
way early, which is weird. And cold. So cold. But I just pretend to be
Elsa and sing : " The cold never bothered me anyways."

The English class is going well! We have another student, a girl from
Nepal who can't say my name. So she calls me Sister Mac instead.

This week we had exchanges and I stayed here in ashford with sister
Grant from Finland while Sister Hernes went to London for the day.
While we were tracting, we were talking to this guy at his door. He
said he wasn't really interested and was telling us about his wife,
who was sick and has a physical disability. We asked if she would be
interested in our message. When he went to go ask her, we heard this
from the next room: " Honey, there are two girls here who are going to
heal you! " Ah! That's not what we said at all! So we had to explain
to her that we were not going to heal her, but just wanted to share a
message. It was quite sad cause she was really excited. But we will
see her next week to share our message.

Saturday we had a ward activity where we had a quiz night. I guess
those are popular here, and everyone in the ward talks so much about
them. They are basically where you are in teams and answer different
trivia questions about random things. It was really fun and we had a
good time getting to know the ward better!

We went to the white cliffs of Dover again today! We went with a
recent convert and a family from Sister Hernes last area. It was a
beautiful day!  Being next to the cliffs was scary, because heights
and I don't really agree with one another. But it was really pretty.

Well, I love you all! Have a wonderful week!

Love, sister Mac

P.s. Here is how to park a car in England... ;) it's okay, we still
could get our bikes out.

Autumn

Hello family! I hope you have all had a great week!

Autumn is here! It is getting really cold. Like, really.  Cold. The
other day I thought I might have been called to the North Pole. I
bought some nice wool tights so it should be better. I used to always
make fun of people who would bundle up when it wasn't that cold, but
now I am one of those people. Aw well. ;)
I am all caught up with general conference now. I have been reading
the talks during personal study. I loved the talk about "ponderizing"
and have made a goal to memorize a new scripture each week. This week
I am memorizing Malachi 3:10. It's about tithing.
We had a super cool miracle this week. We were biking and we stopped a
couple waiting at the bus stop. We were talking to them and found out
they know a less active sister who we work with! They told us that
they had been having a really hard year and have been praying for help
and were ready to give up. Just as we were about to share a scripture
with them, their bus came! We gave them a pass along card, but before
we knew it they were gone. Then a couple of hours later they texted
us! They had contacted the less active sister and gotten our phone
number from her. They had researched the church and wanted to meet
with us! They feel like like this is something that is an answer to
their prayers. They are so sweet!
Last night we went to have a birthday dinner with a sister in the
ward! We baked her a cake. I remembered seeing something on Pinterest
before I left about making a box cake better by using milk instead of
water and more eggs. So, because Pinterest is always right, I decided
to give it a go.  After we cooked it, I didn't test it before we went.
So I just hoped for the best. So when we started eating it, I was just
praying I didn't destroy this cake. But, Pinterest was right. It was
good! Phew!

The church is true!

Love,
Sister McFarland

Here is a picture from the ward service activity we did a couple of
weeks ago. :)

The Miracle Badge

Hello lovely family! Hope you have had a great week! This week was really good for us. It is definitely getting colder now! 

Transfers are this week, and sister Hernes and I will both be staying in Ashford! Yay! I really love this ward. 

My missionary badge is really quite a miracle badge. A couple of weeks ago I had lost it somewhere in Ashford. The next day while biking I looked down to see my badge in the gutter, black and shiny and beautiful. It was a miracle! Then this past week I lost it again... typical me. It fell off while biking. I didn't think I would have that miracle again but I did! A brother in the ward had found it while walking and kept it for me. He also put it on Facebook so the whole ward knew about it. :) haha So every member we saw said, "Sister McFarland, we saw you lost your badge!" Luckily I have two.

Today for P-day we went to the Canterbury Cathedral. Its the oldest cathedral in England. It was really beautiful! And it looked a lot like Hogwarts. I may or may not have pretended that I was in Hogwarts for a while. :) 

We had a really cool miracle with a lovely woman named Joan. She used to be taught by sisters a while ago. We were just stopping by when she pulled up in her car. She invited us in and we had a good lesson with her, and we are now meeting with her regularly. She says she now feels like she is ready for the gospel. :) We are so happy! 

So in our mission we do GAPS-greatness after preparation (also because in the underground in London- "mind the gap") which are principles in the Preach my Gospel lessons, such as God is our loving Heavenly Father, the Book of Mormon, etc. There are assigned gaps for each week and we role play 4 gaps to each other every day. They each have a scripture, and have to be 2 min long. It is really good practice teaching. 

 Anyways, I love you all! I hope you have a marvelous week filled with sunshine and happiness! 

Love,
Sister McFarland

 

Conference, Cliffs, and English Class

Conference was really good. We watched the first session at a member's home live, (5:00 England time)  and it was cool to think that you guys were home watching the exact same thing, singing the same songs, at the same time! The other sessions we watched at members homes later. We watched the Saturday afternoon session at 1:00 Sunday and the Sunday morning session at 5:00. They show them at the stake centre but we watched all of them at member's homes. I still haven't seen or read the Sunday afternoon session. I think I will study it for personal study tomorrow.

So today I am emailing late because for P day we went to the White Cliffs of Dover! It was so cool! It was really beautiful. It was a bit rainy but not too bad. I got a bit nervous standing on the edge of the cliff as I'm sure you can imagine. 

So the English class went really great! We didn't think anyone would come, but a Chinese couple did. They are so so nice! The class went well and afterwards we taught them about prayer. They want to come to church next week! They own a fish and chip shop nearby and give us 50% off. We have heard of more people who will be coming next week, so it is building!

Love,
Adriana 

Namaste

And it came to pass that the sister missionaries in Ashford where
blessed with sunny weather all the days of the week ace one, and great
was the joy of those missionaries.

And it came to pass that Wednesday we had interviews with President
Stevens, and it was fantastic. We did have joy in listening to
President and Sister Stevens give great trainings and getting to know
them better. They are so nice and loving! Sister Stevens was telling
us stories about speaking in general conference. She was saying :"Oh
elders and sisters I just love you!" When the Siri on her phone said
"I did not understand what you said" and the whole zone just started
laughing. After the interviews, we were waiting for the elders (our
ride home) while they talked with president because they are the zone
leaders. Sister Hernes and I were in the bathroom and started singing
the circle of life quite loudly,  unaware that they were right next
door and could hear us singing the whole time. Haha!

And Thursday was Sister Hernes birthday! She really wanted to find a
golden investigator for her birthday. We didn't find them, but we
talked to many interesting people. One of them said that in 60 years
when he was dead he would send us a text to tell us if we were right
or wrong about life after death... So we will see how that works out.
Monday when we were doing our shopping, I was really sneaky and
bought Sister Hernes a scarf for her birthday without her noticing.
(Fist pump) she liked it! We also made pancakes for dinner.
So we have decided to start an English class here! The first class
will be Wednesday. We made flyers for the class and went to town
centre and gave them to every Napolise person we saw. There are so
many people her from Nepal! We have started calling them Namastes,
which means hello in napolise.  So we will see how the class goes!
That night we had a dinner appointment with a family in the ward where
we ate pancakes. 

Saturday morning we had a pancake breakfast with the bishop and his
family. So yeah, we had a lot of pancakes this week. :) After a very
filling breakfast we went and played football (soccer) with some of
the men from the ward. Sister Hernes and I were the only girls there.
I am terrible at football so it was a bit embarrassing.  But I tried!
I basically ran up and down left field and went for the ball if it
came my way. Haha

Well my friends, it has been a great week! I love you all!

Love Sister McFarland