Christmas Hype

Hello everyone! I hope you are all well!

Things are going really good here in the blessed land of Dereham. We

are getting so excited for Christmas. I loved getting to be a

missionary on Christmas last year, and am excited that I get to have

another one before I go home.



This week I had the opportunity to be reunited with Sister Hernes! She

is touring the mission and we were able to meet up in Norwich briefly.

It was so good to see my step mum again! I sure love that girl.



We were extremely busy this week as we had exchanges with our sister

training leaders in Colchester (my last exchange!)  and the annual

Christmas conference (also in Colchester.)

The Christmas conference was really fun. Sister Cabral and I decided

to show our companionship unity by getting matching Christmas jumpers.

At the conference we had a spiritual devotional and then a lot of

games. President and Sister Stevens were also there.

It really got me in the Christmas spirit!



Yesterday We were invited by a part member couple in our ward to

attend a Church of England carol service. It's a very English

tradition for churches to hold a Christmas carol service, where

congregations gather and we read the Christmas story from the Bible

and sing carols together. It was an interesting experience, as I have

never attended another church before. But the carols were still the

same and everyone was really lovely! We came straight from that carol

service to our carol service here- so there was a lot of singing

yesterday. I really love the hymns and the spirit they bring!



The work is going well. We have been teaching Margarida again. She is

a lovely woman from Portugal. She speaks no English, and I speak no

Portuguese. So there is a bit of a language barrier there. Thankfully

there are some really great members here that can help sister Cabral

with teaching her! Sometimes during the lessons I can understand a

little bit when I reach back in my memory and try to remember my 9th

grade Spanish class, as Portuguese is similar to Spanish.

She is so lovely, and I am trying to learn some Portuguese so I can

speak to her a little more. So far I can ask her how her Book of

Mormon reading is going and how she liked church.



I hope you are all getting ready and excited for Christmas! I love

this time of year, and I am so excited for Christmas!

I love you all! Have a happy Christmas!



Love,

Sister Adriana McFarland

Christmas is Coming!

Hello! Sorry for such a short email. We have a Christmas conference this Thursday
when President and Sister Stevens will come deliver our packages to us.
We don't get to go to London this time. We will be with the Norwich and Ipswich zones,
and since they are far away from London President and Sister Stevens will be coming up
to us. It will be in Colchester. I'm kinda sad, cause I love going to London. Ashford is much
closer to London, so that's why we were there last year. I am excited to talk family on
Christmas.We  have  already been invited to 3 dinners, so that will be fun! 
Love,
Sister Adriana McFarland

Awkward Moments

Hello everyone! I hope you have all had a good week.

This week has been good for us here in Dereham. Full of blessings, tender mercies, and awkward moments. As always. Mission life was full of strange happenings this week. Including (but not limited to) a woman coming to the door with no clothes on, being preached to by born agains on the street for an hour, and almost getting lost in remote villages. I think the most embarrassing one happened when we went to visit an older member who is in a care home. He is a lovely man who loves to get visitors, and loves the gospel. When we went, he was sitting in the lounge area with a few other elderly people. As chairs where limited, I let the member we were with and my companion sit on the chairs while I sat on the floor. As we were talking, I slowly became aware that my tights were wet. I thought through what had happened that day, and realising that it hadn't been raining, and I didn't spill anything, so the carpet must have already been wet. The bad smell suddenly helped me put two and two together as I realised with horror that someone must have had an accident on the floor, right where I was sitting. So gross. Luckily it was the end of the day so we could rush home to shower and get a change of clothes. 

But, on a more spiritual note, things have been going very well here. God is blessing us so much! Chris is really progressing. He came to church yesterday and really enjoyed it. I always get nervous when new friends come to fast and testimony meeting because I'm worried that the members might say something blasphemous. But no one did and he really appreciated it!

Sister Cabral and I have been really trying to work more with the members here, and have been seeing good things come from it. The members here are fantastic.

I love you all! Have a great week.

Love,

Sister Adriana McFarland

#LighttheWorld 

#LIGHTtheWORLD

Hello everyone!

I hope you all had a fantastic Thanksgiving and ate lots of really good food! It's a great time of year to really reflect on what we are grateful for. I am thankful for so many things, but especially for the gospel in my life and the opportunity I have to serve a mission.

So, transfer news came last night, and thankfully sister Cabral and I will be staying in Dereham for my last transfer! It was such a relief to hear that I will get to finish my mission in the blessed land of Dereham, especially as things have been going so well here!

These past two weeks have been full of miracles, and amazing people have started to come out of nowhere, who have been really prepared for the gospel.

One is a man named Chris.  Two weeks ago he invited us to a bell ringing practice at the church of England opposite our flat. He and his son ring the bells for church every week!  We went and had a really fun time. It was interesting to see how they ring the bells every Sunday. They even let Sister Cabral and I have a turn ringing the bells. We have only taught him once, but because he is so busy with work we don't get to see him as regularly as we would like.  He told us on the phone though how much he is enjoying reading the book of Mormon. He told us that when he starts to read, he just doesn't want to put it down! He told us he will take the Book of Mormon with him on his work trip, where he will have more time to read.

We also met a really wonderful woman named Cilla. Her son is investigating the church in Norwich, and she has really started to see a change in him, and wanted to know what the church is all about. She went to church with her son last Sunday and had a good experience. These are just a few of miracles that have been happening here. I am really excited to start to teach these amazing people and help them come unto Christ. I will keep you updated on their progression!

I hope you all have had a chance to watch the new Christmas video Light the World. If you haven't seen it, it is found on Mormon.org. It encourages us to put Christ back into Christmas by finding ways to do daily acts of service throughout December. Please look at Mormon.org to get ideas, and then lets all light the world through service this next month.

Mosiah 2:17 " I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom, that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings, ye are only in the service of your God."

I love you all and hope you have a fantastic week.

Love,

Sister Adriana McFarland 

   

News From Dereham

Hey Everyone,

Transfers are next week, so I will find out then if I will die (finish my mission) in Dereham or not. So next week I will be emailing on Tuesday to let you know.

Yesterday a member invited us over for dinner on Thursday, and she was asking me about what kind of foods we have at Thanksgiving because she wanted to make me a Thanksgiving dinner. So that was really nice! I'll send pictures.
Love you all! Hope you have a good week and a Happy Thanksgiving.

Xxx Adriana 

1) We cooked chestnuts! Sister Cabral does this a lot at home, but I have never tried them. They were nice! 

2) Sister Cabral and I 

3) Evidence that I will become a crazy cat lady. 

In Memory of My Bag

This week was full of learning experiences for me. The past two weeks have been a real challenge for Sister Cabral and I and the work in Dereham. Last week all of our investigators dropped us, and this past week we struggled to find new friends. Now I'm not one to count numbers, but i'ts really stressful when you get to Saturday afternoon and every single key indicator is at zero. We had planned to have a full day of finding, and despite the heavy rain we were determined to not come home until we found a new friend. The day didn't start out too great as our appointment didn't show up. As a backup plan we did some tracting. Unfortunately, while we were tracting, my beloved, faithful, bright blue "Mary Poppins" bag decided to give up the ghost. The zipper completely broke, and in a country where it rains all the time, a bag that doesn't close is useless. For 16 months that bag has been by my side in the rain or sunshine, cold and humid heat. It's carried so many things for me and all my companions, and been loved by every cat who ever tried to sit on it. It's a silly thing to be upset about, but I sure loved that bag and will miss it immensely.

After such an emotional morning, God blessed us so much that evening. We got a call from our zone leaders telling us that they wanted to come finding with us in the evening to help us out. Lads. They were super late though, and while we were waiting for them we were able to find two new friends who are interested in learning more! They were both such miracles and so prepared. When the zone leaders finally came, it was nearly time to go home for dinner, which we were so looking forward to after a long day. But because they had come out so far to help us, we decided to tract one more street. And on that street we found a really wonderful father who wanted us to come and teach his family. His nine year old son hears the church bells go off every Sunday from the old church in town, and has really wanted to go to church. His father doesn't want to limit him to one church though, and has really wanted to meet with the missionaries again so he and his son can learn about our church.

I was so grateful that God blessed us so much!

I really have learned that God sometimes leaves things to the very last minute to test our faith. He could have led us to those people at the beginning of the week, but he didn't. He waited so that we could also benefit and learn from the experience of stretching ourselves to find them.

In Ether 12:6 it says: "dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith." God tests us with a trail of our faith, and at that last possible minute before we want to give up He blesses us.  He waited until the very end of the day to give us those people to teach.

The church is true! I am so thankful for the gospel in my life.

I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Love you all!

Sister Adriana McFarland

Remember, Remember the 5th of November

Hey everyone!

Apologies for last week. It was a crazy p day and I didn't have enough time to send out a long email! I hope you all had a happy Halloween and ate lots of candy. 

On Tuesday, we got to go to Colchester for an exchange with the Sister Training leaders. I got to be with Sister Phillips, who is in my group and was the first person I met in the mission. It was fun to catch up and spend the day with her! We also taught a few very awkward lessons to some very interesting people, but it's fine. :) #embracetheawkward 

 

This week we had the opportunity to celebrate bonfire night, which is a holiday here in England. It's a rare holiday as we celebrate something that didn't happen!  It's to celebrate that once a man named Guy Fawkes tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament, but was caught and killed before it happened. Everyone celebrates with big bonfires and fireworks. Last year I didn't get to go to one, but this year our ward had a bonfire and fireworks. It was a lot of fun, and was the biggest bonfire that I have ever seen in my life.  I was also convinced that our lives were in jeopardy!  It started when someone put a 15 year old young man in charge of the fireworks, and they were way to close for my comfort. (Hermana Tobler will understand my fear of being too close to fireworks...) But everything was going okay until a few rogue firework decided to shake things up. Suddenly, instead of shooting up, they went sideways, and fireworks were exploding right in front of us! All at once, everyone seemed to realize that this was not supposed to be happening, and started scrambling to get away from the explosions. My companion and I dove behind a shed for protection. One member was hit on the leg, but no one was hurt. Everyone seemed to shrug the incident off like it was no big deal, and carried on launching the rest of the fireworks.  I'm told that something like this happens every year, (and that last year was much worse).  I spent the rest of the evening as far away from the fireworks as possible, and clinging to Sister Cabral's arm every time a firework went off. 

Not much more has happened with the work in Dereham, as everyone who we were teaching seems to have dropped off. We are starting back at the beginning with finding new people to teach. 

I love being a missionary! It's the greatest thing. I know this church is true. 

I love you all, and I hope you have a great week. Stay safe and away from crazy firework shows! 

Love,

Sister Adriana McFarland 

Happy Halloween!

Hello Everyone!

Today for Halloween we are carving pumpkins as a district! 

Halloween isn't a very big holiday here. Not too many people celebrate
it. But the 5th of November is a really big English Holiday- Guy
Fawkes night! I don't know if I told you about that last year. It's to
celebrate the death of a man named Guy Fawkes. He tried to blow up the
Houses of Parliament but was caught and burned at the stake. So to
celebrate, everyone makes big bonfires and has fireworks. They used to
make straw men to put in the fire, but they don't really do that
anymore. It's kind of morbid, but hey- it's tradition. Do you remember
the 1st episode of Sherlock in season 3? That's about Guy Fawkes
night. And that episode makes so much more sense now after being in
England. I didn't get to go to a bonfire last year, but this year the
ward is doing one as an activity, so I am excited to go. I'll take
some pictures to send to you!

Have a Happy Halloween!

Love,

Sister McFarland

Tread Carefully

This week has been good here in Dereham. We have continued to see miracles and meet amazing people. recently we have been trying to work more with the members. 

Member missionary work is so key. Sister Cabral and I are both pretty new to the area, so we have been really working on gaining the trust of the ward. The ward here is fantastic! This past week we had the opportunity to have dinner at a members home who I didn't know very well. It was their first time having us over, so we wanted to make a good impression. When we walked into the dining room, I quickly moved around the table to shake everyone's hands because I was so excited to meet everyone. But in my excitement, I failed to notice the large hutch next to the table full of willow tree figurines that I think every Mormon family has somewhere in their home. I happened to hit this hutch with my shoulder quite hard, and to my horror, the whole hutch shook precariously and I watched as all these beautiful figurines all fell off and hit the floor, with quite an impressive loud noise. So much for good first impressions! Thank heavens, none of them broke. So I quickly tried to pick them back up, although the member encouraged me to just sit down so I didn't make it worse. After the shelf was back in order, we finally sat down, (my face was more red than a tomato), and everyone at the table erupted in laughter. It actually turned out to be a great ice breaker. (although I wouldn't recommend doing it to gain members trust.) 

Autumn is here, the air is getting colder, the leaves are changing colour, and tight season is back. 

I am so grateful for this gospel. It has blessed my life in so many ways. I know that this church is true! 

I love you all! 

- Sister Adriana McFarland

The Trio's Down to Two

Hello everyone!

Apologies about last week. It was a super crazy day! It took up most of the day to get Sister Maughan to London and then to come back again. There were a lot of delays on the trains so we didn't get back until after 10pm. late nights make for long weeks. 

The week was good, but it has been sad to not have Sister Maughan with us. I always seem to go through companion withdrawals when a companion leaves.  

This week we had a cool miracle. We were street contacting and found a woman from Portugal who speaks no English. She had met missionaries before, but because of the language barrier, she turned them away. But now that Sister Cabral can teach her in her own language, she is so excited about the gospel! We have a few members here who are also Portuguese who can help translate during the lessons and at church. As with many other different cultures in the past, I have been learning a lot about Portugal recently and I love it so much!  I am also trying to learn some phrases in Portuguese so I can speak to our new friend. We will start to teach her English this week as well. 

 

I have found that English people are very helpful. Asking someone to help you is a much easier way to start a conversation here than a lot of other approaches.  Yesterday, I asked a woman if she could give us directions to town. She happily told us a series of complicated directions, that didn't make much sense. I also knew that the directions she was giving us were incorrect. Haha, so after following her directions for a little while, we decided to go back to the path we were on and follow the trusty map. It's kind of like a metaphor for life.  People will point us in the wrong direction, and if you don't know where you are going, or get direction from the wrong people you can end up being lost. That's why I am so thankful to be a part of this church where I know that we can receive the right directions that lead us back to our Father in Heaven. The church is true, the Book is blue, and we go out two by two! 

Have a great week!

Love,

Sister Adriana McFarland 

The Three Musketeers

Hi Everyone! 

This will be a short email because right now I am on a train to London! We are going there to drop off Sister Maughan. She leaves tomorrow morning for Atlanta! So now our trio is down to two. 

Things are going well here. The work has picked up a bit and the ward is really great. 

Here is a picture of us at a service project this week.

Love

Sister Adriana McFarland 

An Unexpected Journey

Hello everyone!
Well, as promised, I have had the most CRAZY week of my mission, and
will hopefully have a more interesting email this week.

It started last Monday, as sister Maughan and I were joining a family
for a lovely family home evening. Then, the assistant to the president
called us with some interesting news: he told us that because Sister
Maughan will be leaving to go to America on the 11, we will be in a
trio until she leaves! When we asked him when we would be getting our
new sister, he told us that our new companion will be coming from the
MTC (missionary training centre) tomorrow and that we needed to drop
all of our plans to get there to meet her at 10 the next day.

So, after arranging and re arranging the flat to fit 3 people, and
cancelling all our plans, we headed off to London bright an early the
next morning to meet our new companion: Sister Cabral. She is from
Madeira Island, Portugal. She came late because she stayed longer in
the MTC to learn English. She is lovely and I am excited to work with
her!

We had to travel to London again  on Thursday for the new missionary
meeting. Usually this meeting happens after three weeks, but because
Sister Cabral came in the third week of the transfer, it was more like
a 3 day meeting for us.  It's nearly a 3 1/2 hour journey to London
from Dereham, so we have spent a lot of time traveling this week.
Because we had to be in London so early on Thursday, we spent the
night in the Norwich sisters, Sister Smiddy and Sister Benson's flat.
It was so fun to be back in Norwich, even if it was just for a day!

Being in a trio is fun, and really different to anything I am used to.
It is also interesting to be training two new missionaries at the same
time. Sister Maughan is on the last few weeks of her training
anyway,but our companionship has been running purely on greenie faith
and the Spirit.

I loved watching General Conference, and I hope you all had the chance
to watch it too! It is so amazing that we have living prophets and
apostles on the earth today who lead and guide this church. I really
felt the spirit strongly durning the conference, and I know these men
are called of God. If you didn't get to watch it, find time to watch
it this week. If you did watch it, make sure you review the talks and
your notes and set a plan of action of what you will change from now
on.

I love this work, and I love the gospel with all my heart.
Shall we not go on in so great a cause?
Have a great week!
Love,
Sister Adriana McFarland

Dear Old Dereham

Hey beloved family and friends!
First of all, I would like to formally apologise for the decline in
the quality of my emails recently. I'll make sure more exciting things
happen this week to write about next week.

Yesterday was great, because Simon, a recent convert who was baptised
2 weeks ago was finally confirmed! He went to hospital shortly after
his baptism, so his confirmation had to be delayed until he came home.
I was also spontaneously asked to share my testimony during sacrament
meeting. Afterwards, Simon thanked me for my testimony and
congratulated me on my good English. He said it had improved a lot! I
was a bit confused, as I wasn't aware that I struggled with English in
the first place. I did remind him that I was American and that English
was my first language. He still didn't quite understand. I don't know
if he thought that we spoke a different language across the pond or
what.
Also, I had a random kid come out of the bathroom and dry his hands on
my tights. A bit random, but hey, we are good friends now.

I am so excited for General Conference this week. I love to hear the
inspired words of the prophets and apostles. We are so blessed to have
a living prophet on the earth today, and that we can hear from them
every six months at general conference. So have your questions ready
to be answered this weekend!

Love you all!
Sister McFarland

Joys of Mission Life

This week has been incredibly refreshing. The teaching pool has been dry for a long time, and the past four months have been full of street contacting, tracting, and seeing little success in the work. This week we were blessed with a flood of miracles as we finally began to see some progress, and our teaching pool has begun to fill back up!

On Saturday night, we were sitting at the bus stop as we cheekily stole some WIFI from the bank across the road to do some online proselyting. Right before we were about to leave, a woman came and sat down next to us. Sister Maughan started talking to her. Her name is Gabi and she is from California and has just moved here to go to uni. (as they call universtiy here). We talked for a long time, and she was very receptive to the gospel and wanted to learn more! We invited her to church, and agreed to meet her there the following morning so we could walk to church together. The next morning, right before Gabi came, another woman came up to us and said: "Sisters! where is the church? We are looking for the chapel." It turns out that she is from another ward, and she and her family were visiting Dereham for the day. Right then, Gabi came, and so we all piled in the car together to go to church. Gabi loved church, and the spirit was so strong. The members who gave us all a lift helped her so much at church.  We are excited to work with her and help her prepare for her baptism next month. 

We had another exchange this week with our sister training leaders, Sister Phillips and Sister Matthews. I got to go with Sister Matthews, who was my companion in Southend over 6 months ago. It was so much fun to be with her again and to relive our time in Southend! 

 This church is true, and I am so thankful to be a missionary and to get to be a part of this great work. Shall we not go on in so great a cause?

I love you all. Have a great week! 

Love,

Sister McFarland  

The Spontaneous P-Day

Hello to everyone from Dereham! It has definitely been weird to be
back in Norfolk. Us getting here was quite an adventure!
So because both sister Topp and sister Maughan are waiting for a visa
to go to America, they had to have an appointment at the U.S embassy
in London early Thursday morning. The assistants to the president told
us that we would be staying Wednesday night in London so that we could
be on time to their appointment the next day, but they didn't tell us
much else. So after getting our new companions, Sister Topp, Sister
Maughan, Sister Syddall, and I went to the mission home to figure out
what was happening. The assistants to the presidents were a bit busy
as they were trying to sort out 26 new missionaries coming in, and
because they wanted us out of the way they told us to take another
Pday in London! It was by far the weirdest day of my mission, as we
didn't have any plans at all, and I felt like a waster, but what could
we do? We saw some fun London things, and got lost in the great and
spacious building. (Harrods).
The next day was successful however because both Sister Topp and
Sister Maughan got their visas approved! They will probably be off to
America in 5 weeks. It will be so hard to send them both off at the
same time!

We finally made it home to Dereham on Thursday and it was such a
relief to be back to regular missionary life. Dereham is such a cute
little village! It is very English. I am so excited to serve here! It
is weird to be back in the Norwich district. We had a district meeting
last week in the Norwich chapel, and it brought back so many memories
of my time there with Sister Chou!

We had a cool experience this week when we were finding. We met a
woman on the street who has really been going through a rough time. We
told her that God loves her, and she just hugged me and started crying
in my shoulder! The gospel truly can heal our souls if we let it, and
I hope as we teach this woman more she can come to feel that in her
life.

I love you all! Have a great week!
Love,
Sister McFarland