Monday, July 25, 2016

Dumbarton 07/25/2016

Hello Everyone!

What a great it has been! We taught a few lessons. It was really hot at the beginning of the week and raining by the end of it!

This is how the week went

On Monday, I had a doctors appointment in Glasgow so we went to Glasgow for basically the whole day! It honor of Aunt Jill, I went to the Hard Rock cafe and bought a Hard Rock Glasgow shirt! We also went to a American sweet store in the Buchanan galleries. I bought some A&W root beer for my birthday of the 6th of August.

We took a train back in the evening and went to Helensburgh, where we went finding for the rest of the evening!

On Tuesday, we traveled by train to district meeting in Glasgow. We talked about teaching simply so that our investigators can understand. We also practice relating objects to the Gospel. It proved very useful to help our investigators relate to the Gospel by the things they use everyday!

In the evening we taught a man named Mark at the Church! We taught about the Holy Ghost and the Restoration! He was taught before by previous missionaries but he didn't really understand it seems. Hopefully we can meet him again so we can help him grow a knowledge in the Gospel.

On Wednesday, we taught a man named Jeremiah, who we found the day before. He grew up in Birmingham, England but is originally from Jamaica. We taught him the Restoration and focused on the Book of Mormon. He said he liked the way he was living but we committed him to read the Book of Mormon and pray to really know if what we were sharing is true.

We went to the Gallachers that evening for dinner! We had a really good shepherds pie and chocolate cake! Afterwards we shared a message on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I related the Gospel to a map that we can use to direct our life's in the right path!

After that we went with Brother Gallacher to visit some less- active members! We visit two older ladies, Morrag (My spelling) and Henrietta. We shared to both about the Sabbath day and why we come to church.

On Thursday, we taught a woman in the evening named Dorthy Bryce. She really likes the church but has a hard time committing to Baptism because of Health problems. We hope to continue to meet with her to help her understanding.

The rest of the day we spent finding!

On Friday, we had our appointments fall through so we spent the whole day finding.

Our ward mission leader brought a BBQ ranch pizza for dinner which really helped after a long day of finding!

On Saturday, We met with a woman in our ward, named Ann Browning. She took us out to lunch. She took us to a really good pub! I got a Southern Fried Chicken sandwich with fried Mac and Cheese on top. It was HUGEEE, I had a hard time taking a bite into that thing! She also bought us desert there which was so nice of her! Its really nice to be supported by the members!

Afterwards, we went to help a Sister in the ward, Sister Burns, mow here lawn. Her husband is unable to because of medical problems. After mowing, we were able to sit down with both of them. David Burns, her husband, isn't a member so it was good to get to know him!

In the evening, we had Ward Coordination with Johnathan Martin, our ward mission leader. Before he took us to get Fish and Chips at a really good chippie! We had a good ward coordination meeting and we were able to discuss the needs for missionary work!
.
On Sunday, we had a wonderful church meeting! We talked in Priesthood about "Always retaining a remission of your sins" by Elder David A. Bednar off the Quorum of the Twelve apostles. It was a great lesson and a talk i recommend reading!

After church we had dinner at the Coupers, a big family in the ward. They made a great dinner, a roast dinner! We were grateful for letting us come to dinner! We shared about what Heavenly father

In the evening we went finding and it poured! We got soaked. Someone was even water skiing during the storm!

What a great week!

I love being a missionary! Its great and I feel great!

I hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Elder Joseph Udy
                                                                 Loch Lommond
                                                        My desk


Monday, July 18, 2016

Dumbarton 7/18/2016

Hello Everyone!

I can't believe i've been out for 10 months, It goes by so fast!

I love Scotland, I'm starting to get used to the accent!

This is how the week went;

Monday, We went to Dumbarton castle. It was amazing and a took a ton of pictures! You can see the start of the Highlands from the top of the Dumbarton rock! I also bought some Clan books for the Morrison clan and the Hamilton Clan, I'll have to send them home so you can all enjoy them!

Tuesday, We went to district meeting in Glasgow. We had a great district meeting. The Zone leaders were there and also the assistants! We talked about having a spiritual Sabbath day experience, for us and our investigators. We need to love church or our investigators most likely won't because they see what we do!

The assistants gave us some manuals on Safeguards using technology. Some thing might be happening in the future.. IPads... but I don't know..

After the meeting I went on exchanges with Elder Parsons, who is the district leader. We went to a Buffet with some of the other missionaries. Elder Salinas birthday was that day so they sang to him! 

Afterwards we went finding on Buchanan street, which is the 2nd busiest street in the UK. There were so many people! They are building a Krispy Kreme here...

At their apartment they have Pancake mix from Costco.. THEY HAVE A COSTCO HERE AND PANCAKE MIX.. too bad its not in my area.. but we had a pancake party for dinner!

Wednesday, we traveled back to Dumbarton. It was fun because Glasgow central station is huge and we had a hard time finding our train.

We did finding until we had dinner with the Gallachers. They are so nice! After dinner we went on Home teaching splits, I went with Brother Gallacher and Elder Roylance went with Johnathan, our ward mission leader. We saw a member named Esther. She fed us some really nice Cadbury cake. She has a foster child and they had their member friends over! We talked about enduring to the end!

Thursday, not much happened we had a whole day of finding

Friday, we did a lot of finding as well. We also tried by a lot of former investigators!
For dinner, we went to a really good fish and chip shop that does a lot of deep fried things. I had deep fried pizza, it was alright. It was good to try!

Saturday, we taught a women named Amanda. It was a intresting lesson. We taught her in a town called Bolloch. That day the Highland games were in Bolloch, so it was hard to teach over so many bagpipes but it was fun!

In the evening we had Ward Coordination with Johnathan. He took us out to KFC! He is really cool. He has been home from his mission for 18 months. He served in the Birmingham Mission. We talked about how we can further the work here!

Sunday, today i gave a talk. It was on Spiritual Rebirth. I learned a lot from studying for it! I will put a attachment for my talk in this email.

After church we had lunch at the Cattell's. They made us a ham and potato lunch! It was really good. Sister Cattell actually has a article in the ensign from this month and on LDS.org about teaching in the saviors way. They also filmed some videos about it and put on the website as well. 

It was a good week and we hope to do better this week!

I hope you all have a great week! 

Love,

Elder Joseph Udy


                                                      On top of Dumbarton Rock




                                                                  Fried Pizza

Dumbarton 7/11/2016

                  
Hello Family!

Scotland, what a beautiful place and I'm loving the people of Glasgow (Since Dumbarton is a Suburb of Glasgow).

On Tuesday:
  • I was in 3 three different Countries in the same day (Ireland,Northern Ireland,Scotland) 
  • I changed currencies (Euros€ to Sterling Pounds£)
  • I also went through hearing 3 types of Accents
  • My trip was around 281 miles with a total of 9 1/2 hours (Sligo--->Dublin--->Belfast--->Over the Irish sea on a ferry--->Glasgow--->Dumbarton)
What a trip! 

This email is going to be a little different just because it was a weird week!
So I am in Dumbarton Now. Elder Roylance is my companion. We whitewashed Dumbarton Together which means that replaced the two missionaries who were already here.

The Glasgow Accent is sometimes hard to understand. Our area is really nice. We cover up Loch Lomond (The Largest Loch/Lake in the Uk) and a little past. We cover several towns (Dumbarton, Helensburgh, Alexandria...)

The members are really nice here. 

The Gallachers had us over for dinner on Wednesday. I think we had  shepherds pie. It was really good! It was funny when they me, at the beginning, that they were talking to my parents and they were going to post of picture to them! I shared Alma 5: 45-46 with them. It talks about praying and fasting to know the truth. The Spirit will make it know unto us if we put in our part. They have a son around Dallins age, Paul. I think they would get along great!

We had dinner on Thursday with a Less Active Member named Sister O'rawe. Let me say that she was really funny and her Scottish Accent added to that!

For the most of the week we spent time trying to figure out our area (I think we got lost a couple of times). We didn't teach anyone but hopefully we can in the future!
The Dumbarton Ward is nice. There is around 50 coming to church. the members are really friendly and really Scottish! Its a big change from a Branch of 20 people! There were actually some visitors from Sugarland Texas! 

Remember the scottish soda, Irn Bru, well I had a lot of that in the past week. Its so big here that it outsells Coca Cola. In the place that we shop, ASDA, There is a huge section of it and the stores own Brand! They also sell root beer here so I'm set!

We have a nice tarmac track and work out machines in a park in front of our flat!
 
We have a lovely castle, The Dumbarton Castle from the view of our Flat. I took some pictures of it from the town center. We are going there today!

And Elder Davis is in my district Again! 

Scotland is great! 

I hope you all have a wonderful week

Here is my address(There is a slash in between the 2 and 5, just to show the building number and apartment number, just know that so you don't put a 1).

2/5 Crosslet Road
Dumbarton
G82 2ES
Scotland

Love,

Elder Joseph Udy



                                           Looking at Scotland from the Ferry

Elder Guillon and I 



                                                             Elder Davis and I


                                                                  Dumbarton Castle


                                                                          Scotland


                                       Transfer from Sligo Ireland to Dumbarton Scotland

Sligo 7/4/16


Hello Everyone! 
I am leaving the Emerald Isle to go to Scotland!. I will be serving in Dumbarton which is in the Glasgow Stake!   It will be fun, but this is how my last week here went!

Monday:
We played Frisbee in the park! I bought a Ireland Jersey!
In the evening we met with Jesus and Loander. We shared with them the Mormon Message : Testimony of the Book of Mormon. I knew they felt the power of Jeffery R Holland's Testimony and it was so powerful to me as well. We then read 1 Nephi 7. It teaches us to be grateful for the blessings we have received from our loving Heavenly Father!

Tuesday:
In the morning, we had our district meeting over Skype. We talked about obedience and why it is so important. When we disobey we are blocking the blessings that could come into our lives.  The rest of the day we spent finding. We pushed hard and found some good people to teach!

Wednesday:
Today we taught a man named Robin Hey. He is from Holland. He plays the banjo on the street. I actually bought his CD about 2 months ago! We talked about keeping the commandments. He told us that keeping the commandments is something he would like to do!

After that we taught our Brazilian friend, Eduardo. We read the first chapter of first Nephi with him. He knows what it was saying was true! He works on the weekends so we need to help him have a desire to come to church!

Thursday:
We went to Jesus and Loander's Latin Dance class. It was fun! They made some really good fruit punch!  After the class we actually taught a women, Hillary, that we met that day at the Dance class! She is very open and is willing to pray and read about the Book of Mormon!  In the evening we went to Tobercurry with Brother Ducusin to see Stephen! He is doing well! He reads all the time and has a strong testimony!

Friday:
We taught Robin again! He travels around a lot. we taught him about the Word of Wisdom. We committed him to live it while he is gone in Spain!  After we taught Ed. We talked about Gods love and how it is for everyone! He is such a great man but is held back because of Word of Wisdom Issues!  We then had Family home evening. We read a talk by Thomas S. Monson about having Christ as a center for our lives!

Saturday:
We met with Chris! He is not getting baptized yet because he wanted to know and be taught more so he can decide.  After we went finding for the rest of the evening!

Sunday:
What a great testimony meeting! In joint Priesthood/Relief Society, we taught about talents and how we can help others !

It was a great week!

I get to my area tomorrow. I will be white washing (it means that they are putting new elders into the area to get a fresh start on the area!) Dumbarton!

It will be fun! I will miss Sligo!
Also when you send my package can you get me some bleach pens, tide to go pens and socks (if you can)
I love you all so much!
Have a great week!
Love,
Elder Joseph Udy

Sligo 6/27/16

Hello Family!

What a crazy week!  Ireland won against Italy but lost to France! The UK is leaving the EU and The Sterling Pound dropped so that's good for me!

This was our interesting week!

Monday:
We taught Chris in the evening and he is doing well! He is progressing towards his Baptism (which is the 2nd of July!). Things are beginning to pick back up here in Sligo.  We taught Jesus and Loander!   I shared with them the Mormon message, Daily Bread by Elder D. Todd Christtofferson. It talked about getting our Spirtual food like prayer and scripture study. We committed them to read the Book of Mormon, everyday and pray daily as well!

Tuesday:
We had district meeting and the Mullingar Elders came. I was assigned the devotional at the beginning of the meeting. I talked about being a Disciple of Christ. We always need to thinking how Christ would serve. We also need to focus on what can we do to become a better Disciple of Jesus Christ rather then trying to become like other people.  Afterwards we went out into the Towns of Boyle and Carrick-On-Shannon. We found a few people that we can go and teach!  After our day of finding we had district Dinner at a fast food place called Supermacs!

Wednesday:
In afternoon we went to the Garda (Irish police) Station to register for Elder Thaynes Irish Visa.
In the evening we went to visit Chris. We taught him about Prayer and Scripture study!

Thursday:
We went to Jesus and Loander's latin dance class. They taught us the Salsa. It was fun and probably more fun to watch me mess up! I'm glad that we can be a support to them.  In the evening we went to Strand hill to see our friend William. I shared a message with him on Prayer. I asked him to say the Closing prayer but he thought we wanted him to pray to us so that was interesting, we'll have to fix that!

Friday:
We taught Ed. He got engaged to his girlfriend, Caroline! He is awesome. I shared 1 Nephi 3:7 with him because this Scripture has meant a lot to me because it tells us that God doesn't give us any thing that he knows we can't do!  In the evening we had Family Home evening. We had a quiz game on the Plan of Salvation. It was fun!

Saturday:
We went to the Teirnans and helped trim their big tall grass. The trimmers/weed whackers they gave us, made me feel like i was flying a X-Wing. It had a nice harness that made it easy to hold. I also helped Brother Teirnan fix one of his Weed whackers that hadn't been working for 3 years! Sister Teirnan fed us some really nice Chicken Curry!  Afterwards we spent the rest of our evening finding!

Sunday:
What a great Sunday! We had a great lesson in Priesthood about always having Christ in our hearts, it will help us in our lives and bring us more Joy!  After Church, Brother Christensen, brought his grill out and cooked us some nice Hamburgers!  In the evening we had to Stay in our apartment . as directed by our Mission President, because Ireland was playing France and there was going to be a lot of Drunk people out.

It was a great week.
The whole deal with UK leaving the EU is going to have some bad side affects. Scotland and Northern Ireland wanted to stay in so I guess we'll see what happens.
There is this book, called the Infinite Atonement by President Callister, that is in our Mission Library, that would be one thing i would want for my Birthday.
I hope you all have a great week

Love,
Elder Joseph Udy

                                                 Service at Brother Teirnan's House


Sligo 6/20/16

Hello Family!
9 months (Half of Sister Missionary, as they say)

It was a wonderful week!

I got the Package! I loved it!

I'm glad that dad got my Letter! That was fast!

This was my week!

Monday:
We got haircuts! Fresh!!!   We played frisbee in the park! After PDay hours we went finding for the rest of the night!

Tuesday:
We did finding for the whole day because all of our appointments fell through!  In the evening we traveled to Mullingar (For Zone Conference the next day).

Wednesday:
We traveled to Dublin in the Morning!
We had a great Zone conference! We learned about Urgency in our efforts as missionaries! It was great to meet with President Donaldson! He is an amazing Mission President!

One of the Elders, Elder Trease had a friend serving in the Cinco West ward. His friend was Elder Williams! Elder Williams saw my Missionary Plaque and he sent a picture to Elder Trease. Elder Trease told me about it at Zone Conference.  After Zone Conference we went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders! I went with Elder Crowe. Elder Crowe is really into music. He was in a boy band called Beyond 5 before his mission. He told me about the tours he went on! He preformed at Zone Conference and it was really good!

We taught a man named Vilnas who was their Investigator. It was an amazing lesson! He had the best questions and he is progressing towards baptism!  Afterwords we taught a Recent Convert named Jernes. He is receiving the Melchizedek Priesthood and we had a lesson to help him know that he is prepared for the Higher Priesthood!

Thursday:
We taught a Women named Jenny! She is searching for the truth so she was very interested. She had really good questions. Hopefully the Zone Leaders will help here progress towards Baptism!  In the evening we caught a train from Dublin Connolly back to Sligo!

Friday:
We saw our friend Ed from the Bronx. We had a lesson with him on Enduring to the End. He has some problems that he feels he can get over but we testified that he can he can know the truth if he continues studying and praying  and having faith in Jesus Christ!

In the evening we went to Family Home Evening! William, a less active member was there and he had fun. He is hopefully going to start coming back to church!

Saturday:
We taught our friend Chris. We taught him the Plan of Salvation! He loved the lesson and the spirit was so strong in his home!  We taught our friend Clement afterwards. We read with him in Alma 32 about Faith. He wants to know whats true but for himself, he needs to do his part in the promise!
After those lessons we found for the rest of the night. Ireland lost to Belgium in the Euros game so most of the people on the street were angry and upset so it was hard to talk to people!

Sunday:
We had a great Sunday meeting. Chris came and he really enjoyed church! It was great to finally see him there!   In Gospel Principles we taught a lesson on Temples. It was a great lesson and I love testifying of the Joy that comes from going the House of the Lord!

Hope you have a great week!

Elder Udy

Sligo 6/13/16

Hello Everyone!

Another week!

Our week was great!

Here we go!

Monday:
For the first time in my almost 9 months in the Emerald Isle, I have see lighting and it was great. There are rarely lightning or thunderstorms here so I was excited!  That was the highlight of the day! We spent the hours after P-Day, finding in the city.

Tuesday:
Our favorite missionaries from Mullingar came for District Meeting and exchanges.  We talked about our goals for the Sligo District in the Month of June and July.  Elder Davis and I went on exchanges! It was a blast, we went finding for most of the day!  For dinner we all got Kebabs to celebrate and kick off this new transfer.

Wednesday:
We did finding all day until our meeting with Jesus and Loander. We read about the Saviors visit to the Americas! It always brings the Spirit to read about the Savior!

Thursday:
We went to help and support Jesus and Loander with their Latin Dance class. It was actually really fun. We learned how to the Barchacha (I don't know how its really spelled). It was a great finding opportunity. We talked to a older lady that said remember when Ezra Taft Benson was the "Mormon Prophet".

Later,  we taught our Friend Garreth. He works at Game Stop! He was able to get a little break so we could talk to him. We taught him about the Restoration. Elder Thayne and I taught with true Unity, It was probably the most unified lesson I experienced so far on my mission. We testified of the power of the Holy Ghost. He was excited to read the Book of Mormon!

In the evening we went with Brother Teirnan, our branch mission leader, to go see our Recent Convert, Stephen! It was a great lesson! Stephen has a hard time studying so I was able to share with him what I do to study because I have that problem as well! We talked about enduring to the end and how we need to always follow the example of Jesus Christ!

Friday:
We saw Ed today. He is doing well. He has been trying to finish his over 150 poems so he can compile them into a book. We taught about always getting back up when things might be hard, just like Nephi when he got discouraged, he kept going!  Before Family home evening we went to KFC, (Because there wasn't going to be food at Family home evening). It was a tough because it was all uphill bike ride there but the food was good!  Only Jesus and Loander showed up to Family Home Evening.  We talked about Sacrifice  from the Gospel Principles book.

Saturday:
Sligo is most famous for the poet, W.B Yeats, who 150th would have been today! They had a big poem reading and free cake. All I have to say was that the Poem was great and the Cake was delicious!  After that we did finding for the rest of the evening.  We had some ice cream cones to cool off after a warm day!

Sunday:
Another Lovely Sabbath day! We had a great Priesthood lesson on being an example to others!
Later we went with our Branch President to visit some less active members!
It was a great week and this week we have our Zone Conference in Dublin on Wednesday!
I miss you all and hope you all have a great week!
Love,
Elder Joseph Udy