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