Happy Halloween!
This past week has been an exciting one and very busy. Since it was the week of MLC and Zone Meeting we had more administrative things to do than normal, so this coming week will be a relief.
As you can see in the picture, it is definitely Autumn in England, because everything is dropping: leaves, temperature, angle of the sun, daylight, etc... this is the whole Ipswich zone, the biggest in the mission with 28 missionaries. Zone Training Meeting was on Friday and MLC (mission leadership council) was on Wednesday. Both are very different meetings but we still learn a lot. During MLC we had a few guests, the first was President and Sister Alldredge, who presided over this mission from 1997-2000. President Alldredge also happens to be the brother of Sister Stevens. We also had a surprise visit from Clayton Christiansen and his wife who stopped by for a few minutes to say hello.
During MLC I thought of another analogy to explain why we are obedient. In my last computer science class I took before I left for England, much of the class was spent working with things called pointers. Much of the data stored in programs is stored in chunks of memory that have an address. Instead of making loads of copies of the same data chunk, different functions of the program can access it through referencing the address or "pointing" back to the origin. This way data can be moved around and changed without having to take up lots of space to make copies. Obedience works in a similar way. We are obedient to show that what we do is not because of us, but points back to the source of all, God. In a program, when a correct and clean reference is made, access is given to the data. When we are obedient and show it through our works, this is an outward reference/pointer to our love of God. Then we gain access to the data, or blessings. It works better drawn out.
We try to go to all the baptisms that are happening in the zone, so this past weekend we went to Chelmsford for a baptism there. It was the first time I had been there in over a year. We got lunch there and while we were eating, this guy came up to us asking where the chapel was. Turns out he had just recently moved to England from Irvine! It's weird hearing other people with American accents because I have gotten so used to living in England that the American accent sounds more like an accent than an English accent, if that makes sense. We got to watch Charlie's baptism after lunch which was great.
Upcoming this week we have fireworks night on Tuesday, and two exchanges! It's going to go fast and at the end of this week it will already be half way through the transfer.
Cheers!
Elder Spencer Ammermon
England London Mission
64-68 Princes Gate, Exhibition Road
South Kensington
London
England SW7 2PA