#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