January 20th

This Friday I did my normal 10 am “gq” over by the ASDA (a big store) and  I have done this maybe 20 times now.  Some dude comes up to me and tells me that this is "private property and I am not allowed here".  I turn and look at him and ask who owns this property?  He says it doesn’t matter and I need to get off now.  I just looked at him and gave him a look of "I will be back".    I later asked around and from what people have told me it looks like public property.  So we should get an interesting story next week if I don’t get transferred.

This week we had zone meeting and a few elders that I have got to know are going home in the next 3 days.  It was sad to see them go. Elder Durrant will be one of them.  He was my comp in Coventry and he is headed back to Arizona on Wednesday.  It’s always around this time I think what if my mission ended right now.  And thank heavens it’s not.  I still got a lot I need to do out here.

I took my driver’s test... the real one.  I passed the written one but I failed this like hazard test...turns out I was taking wrong ones online. Like it is to test how fast your reaction times are but the online ones I was taking are not the same. So sometime in February I will have to take it again. I felt so stupid when I walked out of the test center.

We met with an ex member this week. He was once upon a time a bishop and very active and then just kinda dropped off.  He said he was "burnt out" but when I looked at him I could tell there was something he wasn’t telling me. He did ask us to come do service with him around the community so we might do that in the future.

Transfers call is tonight. I’m pretty sure elder Nielsen will be leaving and I will get some new person.  Rumor has it the other elders’ flat is closing down and one is going home and they might just join me with the other elder and make it one big area.  I think that would be great. I personally think you only need one team of elders here in Worcester.

Our less active came to church again.  That’s two weeks in a row!!  So he is doing well.  He wants to serve a mission as well, so we are working with him.  So we may not be teaching a lot of people but we are doing some good here.

David with Elder Durrant

January 13th

Another week come and gone. It all seems to be going by so fast!  This transfer is almost over with just one more week. It has gone by so fast and not a lot has happened. This may be the slowest the work has ever gone for me. I go out and work but nothing happens. Oh well I had interviews with president he is really happy with me. He told me he doesn't really care how the work goes he just wants me to help my comp out right now.  He is really worried about him. He also gave me a big thank you for dealing with Elder Webster and he told me he needs me to go leadership.  He said it’s a 50-50 if I leave Worcester this transfer but I’m not staying more then two transfers here. But he did say for sure I'm getting a new comp. I was so happy about that as I really don't like this one. He doesn't gq anyone.   I finally got him to stop people because I blew up at him and was really mad at him. He just stands there looking like he is in pain. President told me just do whatever it takes to get him to work. It’s hard to wanna go out and work when you were just told you are going to leave soon. I feel like that’s all I have done my whole mission is deal with comps who have issues and try to get them to work in a area where nothing is really happening and try to fix it and get things going and then get moved.  But whatever.  If that's just what the Lord wants to use me for here in England.

 Another cool thing is I got news we were the highest baptizing mission in all of Europe with 320 and no one was close. I was shocked!  This mission has a loads of retards, so how did we get 320?

It was an alright week and hope to get things rolling.  It’s just slow.  It’s starting to get a bit boring to tell the truth.  I just go do the same thing every day and nothing is coming from it. I guess that's why we have transfers.

 

 This is a club I pass everyday its called Sin....So I thought I should get a photo with sin.  And out to lunch with some of the other elders.

January 6th - Malvern Hills

This week was alright  - just lots of finding and talking to people on the street.  That seems to be the story of every area here in England. The two Chinese girls I found 4 weeks ago keep coming to church and are on a date to be baptized on the 18th.  They have loads of friends so the elders I gave them to are just loving it. I was a bit bitter about it, but after thinking about it a lot we are all on the same time so if they get baptized it’s a win for the Worcester team.  

 

This week we got to go climb the Malvern hills with them. I will put a few pictures in of it. It is very pretty! We got an investigator going pretty slow who should come to church on Sunday so that should be good.  We are still finding and talking to people on the street which my comp is not really doing. He just stands there while I talk to people on the street. I have been giving him prep talks and everything but nothing works.

This is like the story of my mission.  My last 4 comps have never talked to people on the street here.  Out of the last 4 only one picked it up and did it. Thing is in England 60% of baptisms come from member referrals. 30% are from street contact, street preaching or whatever you wanna call it. We call it gq and the other 10 come from nonmember referrals and knocking doors.  So gqing is the way to do things here. Hope this week we can get things rolling even more.

Miss you all a lot and love you guys.  Love Elder Doty

End of December photos

 White elephant gift exchange and David took this picture of the cathedral from his flat.

 All the new missionaries walk through this door with their trainers to get their picture taken.  David and Elder Bass tried to fool them all... haha!



Merry Christmas!

Thank you everyone for the Christmas e-mails and gifts. I hope you all had a nice Christmas.

I had a good Christmas.  It was nice to skype home and talk to the family. Miss them all a lot. I am looking forward to being able to go back into working again because doing nothing is boring and just makes me homesick.  So I would rather work. Hopefully this week we can get things rolling. We should have this whole elder Nielsen getting hit by a car behind us and we should be able to move forward and get some good things done. Miss you all and love you all.