What a week! A lot has happened this week week so hopefully I can summarise it properly. Last Tuesday we had a great opportunity to hear and play the organ in St. Mary's church just outside of Witham, I picked up Elder Bastien as my new companion on Wednesday, Friday we spent most of the day in Ipswich for a zone meeting, and yesterday we were in South Kensington at Hyde Park Chapel for a mission conference with Clayton Christensen and his wife.
So last week we had the great opportunity to meet Emmelia, who is Sue's neighbour (Sue is one of our investigators). Since it was to be Elder Seely's last day in the area, we wanted to stop by Sue to say bye. Sue wasn't home sadly, but we did get to meet her neighbour Emmelia. I had heard the piano being played a few times while walking by Emmelia's home, so I asked her about it and told her that I play as well. After talking for a little bit, she invited us in so I could play on her keyboard. Her husband was in so we could go in. After talking a little bit, we found out that Emmelia is originally from South Africa, and has been playing the organ and piano for over 40 years! She invited Elder Seely and I to come hear her play on the organ the following day, which was Tuesday.
The following day we met Emmelia at St. Mary's church in Rivenhall, just outside of Witham. This is an old Church of England church that was built on the foundation of Roman ruins from the 1100's! There is so much history there. The actual organ in the church used to be in Windsor Castle, one of the Queens homes. It was so cool to hear her play the organ so beautifully and to be able to walk around inside the old chapel and hear the different acoustics. I also had the chance to play a little Bach on the organ, as well as some hymns. No instrument can compare to the organ in terms of power and being very unforgiving. What a great experience.
The next day picked up Elder Bastien in London to head back to Braintree. He is originally from Mauritius, which is an island off the east coast of Madagascar. He is great. The past few days we have done a lot of walking around Braintree and Witham so he can get used to the area.
Friday we had a zone meeting in Ipswich and had the chance to drive up with the new Chelmsford elders, Elder McAvoy and Elder Andrews. Elder McAvoy is from the UK and his companion is from the U.S., and fresh out of the MTC. Later that night we ate dinner with Duncan and Fiona, which is always good.
Yesterday at Hyde Park Chapel we had a mission conference with Christine and Clayton Christensen, who talked with us about member missionary work. We are trying to shift the focus of the mission to working more with members, because that method is a lot more effective than the traditional tracting and finding in town centre methods. I personally see missionary work through members as the way missionary work should be done. When it all boils down, it's all about helping people. That is why we are out here as missionaries. Service is central to the work. There have been many times I have been able to "be a missionary" by helping to fix people's computers, TVs, vacuums, doing gardening, painting, etc... Having these service opportunities working side by side with members and non-members alike has been so great.
"Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time, and always start with the person nearest to you."
- Mother Teresa
Until next time,
Elder Ammermon