Week #16 Taunton

October 26, 2016
Hey this week was pretty crazy!!

Elder Tsai and I have been going through a lot of the potential investigators profiles this week to see if we can get in contact with some of them.  They're contacts from when the other missionaries were here over a year ago. We have had some return appointments by doing this, so hopefully it will pay off! We taught an investigator Mathew this week about Joseph Smith because he says he knows the BOM is true  but he's just not sure about Joseph Smith. Elder Tsai explained it really well and the spirit was sooo strong. By the end of the lesson he was like yeah that makes sense and said he would pray about it so hopefully that goes well!! We did service for a less active guy named Vince at his house, painting and taking down old wall paper. It was way fun actually! He was bumpin to Linkin Park and Eminem and I was trying so hard not to listen!! So Elder Tsai and I started to sing hymns to the thumping of his music. Haha pretty funny. Never thought I would be doing that in my life! Love it tho. Today we were in town and saw a member and his son. Brendon is the member and Johnny is his son. Johnny is going through a hard time since his wife left him last week... he's really struggling and said he wants to start coming back to church!! He then brought us to some posh chicken place in town which was way good and said whenever we're in town to give him a call and he will buy us food. This guy is a stud and needs Christ back in his life. Hopefully we can help him more this week! Also, we had an investigator named Paul come to church this week!!! He has been taught by Elders in the past but has a hard time with the WOW. He has a great heart and wants to stop so we are going to focus on helping him give up all the smoking, drinking etc. before Christmas so he can be baptized. Missionaries in the past have given up on him cuz his addiction is so bad but I'm not given up! I call him daily and tell him to take the cigarettes out of his mouth and throw them away all the time, haha. I don't know how much he likes it but he has reduced to 20 a day instead of 40 so it's slowly working!! The Atonement is starting to work with this man as he comes to church and wants to learn more about the BOM! We also went out to this crazy small town called Wilvelscombe the other day, fields and cows everywhere it was nice! It reminded me a lot of Idaho actually. 😂 

This week I have learned that patience is key when in a companionship! Christ was a perfect example of this attribute so I challenge you all to just take a deep breath and be patient because things will get better as you put yourself in the hands of the Lord! Love you all and have a good week!!

#Love from Taunton, England to Lindon,Utah 

-ELDER MCSPADDEN
                                                   Taunton, Somerset, England

  The small town of Wilvelscombe!  Love all the open fields it's a lot different than Oxford.

 It gets dark a lot earlier now!                                             We walk all over the place!

Week #15 Taunton

Hey! Hey! Hey!

   Well the unexpected happened!! I got moved on Saturday for an emergency move. We found out Friday night at 9:30pm and I left the next morning at 11am. (Elder Menlove is the new ZL in Maidstone) President called me and said he needs me to re-open the Taunton area in Bristol and be a Senior Companion to a disobedient missionary who was serving in Portsmouth Chinese speaking I guess he did some stuff against mission rules. He doesn't have an iPad and we have to cheek in with President a lot to make sure he's not doing anything stupid, haha. His name is Elder Tsai from Canadaand we were in the MTC together so hopefully it will all work out and I can be a good leader. He's a good guy and I know he will be a great missionary, just a rough start with a trainer who didn't make the best choices.  It's been good so far these last couple days but it's a lot different than what Elder Menlove and I had! Elder Tsai and I have like nothing in common but it's okay we are here to do the Lords work and learn from each other. I think it will help me stay more focused on missionary work! 

    Taunton area is way cool!! Good scenery and just an over all great place. We walk everywhere so it's a lot different than Oxford but I will get used to it. The ward is amazing! We got there and everyone was so happy that missionaries are back in the Taunton area. They said they have been praying as a ward to have them come back and now we are finally here. This last Sunday a member of the ward named Brendon came up to us and said I wanna come on almost every teach I can with you! He's an elderly man but loves to do missionary work so we were pumped about having him. We already have three teaches coming up this week and he's coming to all of them haha. This man is a stud!! 

    I know that as we trust in Gods plan for us that everything will be okay. Sometimes the plan might not be what we want or what we expect and even might be very difficult but if we have faith in Christ and do all we can do to better ourselves each day blessings will come. So have FAITH and NEVER GIVE UP!!!

Love you all have a good week(: 

My address is: 22 Massingham Park Taunton, Somer, TA2 7TG. 

Love from Taunton to Lindon

Elder McSpadden

Elder Menlove, Brother Farrent and I at the train station before we left!

Taunton, England 

                                                   Elder Tsai and I in Taunton!

Week #14 Oxford

October 12, 2016
This week has been a load of meetings! Last Thursday we had a meeting in Reading at the stake center. Then on Friday we had district meeting that went really great. The zone leaders came to that as well. Elder Menlove and I cooked lunch for everyone. We made Sloppy Joes and chips(fries). It was really good food! Then after that we went and did some district finding. We went to Oxford city center and set up some banners and did some contacting. It was really great, there were thousands of people all over the place! We got loads of contacts.

           So the weekend of general conference we didn't have church obviously. So the meal list didn't get passed around. So we thought that we wouldn't have any dinner appointments with families. But to our surprise a miraculous thing happened. Literally every single day a member called up and wanted us to come for dinner! It was crazy! Haha blessings on blessings on blessings! 😂

         Saturday night the Assistants called me and Elder Menlove and wanted us to make a video for the mission magazine this month. So we had to make that. Haha it turned out pretty good. We wore our matching suits.... 😂 

        Church was good as always. We were able to bless the sacrament as well! Then we had our classes. More students are still coming! They have probably been here for a few weeks they just never come to church. I think they're lazy... 

           Zone Conference was way good this week!! We did a presentation at the conference and it was mainly on the history of the first arrival of the church in England and why we are here now. The zone leaders wanted us to get the zone pumped about doing missionary work in England with the 2nd harvest. We talked about the first harvest when Heber C. Kimball first came to England as the first missionary. He leaped onto the dock so he could say he was the first one to step foot on this land to declare the message of the gospel. He walked down the street of England and saw a banner and it said "TRUTH WILL PREVAIL" and he had faith that truth would prevail. Because he had that faith thousands were baptized in England. So we made the same banner and had the zone sign the banner showing that they had faith in the second harvest in England and that truth would prevail!! It was way good and everyone was pumped about doing that! 

          Elder Menlove and I wore our matching suits for zone training! Hahaha everyone loved it. We also paid for ice cream for everyone in the district cuz there were two b days. We went to this sweet ice cream shop. They have like 30 different flavors! That was sweet!

    Good week and I hope many more to come! Transfers are coming up so I hope I stay in Oxford!!! But if not it's Gods will not mine(: 

Much love

-ELDER MCSPADDEN 

 Mission Goal #31

 Twin suits from Oxford, companion unity!  :)

 Eating so healthy, Mama would be proud!

 Lamp Post that inspired the book Chronicles of Narnia!

Truth Will Prevail banner for Zone Conference! 

Week #13 Oxford

October 5th, 2016
Sorry not much of a letter this week! The day has been crazy busy! This week has been super great! We have found loads of new investigators! We were finally able to teach this guy we found a couple months ago. The lesson went really amazing and he wants to be baptized on the 22 of October! His name is Philip. He's so great! General conference was so amazing! I loved every single talk! I especially loved President Monson's talk about the Word of Wisdom. We watched each session with different families from the ward! It was nice! We have been having loads of dinners with members! We have been spoiled! Well I have been really busy today! So the YSA in the ward are running a club at the college which is pretty much a Mormon student club. There is a club fair this week and they have been handing out so many copies of the Book of Mormon! To give you an idea we gave them a box of 40 copies of the Book of Mormon and they texted us 30 min later and said they had run out.... dang that's missionary work right there hahaha. Hopefully we will start teaching a bunch of new people from this! I'm excited to find out! Have a good week(: much love 

-ELDER MCSPADDEN