Cork 2/15/2016

Hello Everyone!

It’s been a great week.  We have been working really hard week here in Corcaigh(Gaelic Spelling of Cork), Ireland. 

We even had a little snow this past week.  We spent over 33 hours finding, I’m tired but I feel great!  I think we walk 6-7 miles a day.  We still have 6 Elders in our apartment for 2 more weeks until our next transfer.    We have Elder Swenson from Las Vegas, Elder Walters from California, Elder Christensen from Wyoming, Elder Van Staden  from South Africa and Elder Brockman(serving mini mission) from Cork. 

Monday:

We had dinner at Paul's house (the member from Nigeria). He made some hot peppa soup. It was super spicy but really good at the same time.  That night, we  drove back into the city to go finding. Since we have 6 elders in Cork now, someone had to ride in the tiny trunk for just that drive. I volunteered because I knew it would be fun!

Tuesday:

We had district meeting. We practice role playing with trying to be more personable. I liked the practice (Even though I don’t like role plays) because we saw actual success from it in our finding!

We ate dinner at a member house named Andrea Stapleton (Branch Presidents sister). She made some really good grilled chicken and potatoes.  It was pancake Tuesday (day before Catholic Lent) so she made us some really good pancakes with butterscotch syrup for dinner. 

Wednesday:

We had a morning of finding.   In the afternoon, we taught a woman named Jackie. She does Media Analyzing so she gave us a bunch of pictures to analyze which was cool.  We tried stopping by an investigator’s house named John, who lives on the north side, so we had to catch a bus up there. We spent the night up there tracting. 

Thursday:

We had a power house day of finding. We found a lot of potential investigators and also managed to not have our feet fall off!

Friday:

We did finding for most of the day. We talked to two homeless ladies. One thought I looked like a bouncer so that was kind of funny. They were very interested in meeting with us. We will see how that goes.   Later that day, we taught a Romanian family. We talked to them about a living prophet that guides us. They were really interested. Elder Christensen actually knows their cousins that live in Dublin, so that was cool.

That evening we had a Branch activity. While the other missionaries were playing games, I had a huge nerf war with the primary kids, it was so fun! President Stapleton also gave me an assignment to speak on Sunday!

Saturday:

We taught Lucas in the city that afternoon. We testified of Prophet Thomas S. Monson and the commandments. I love testifying of truth because you can always feel the spirit!  We went street boarding that night. There was a guy playing the Saxophone while were talking to people.  I loved hearing him play.

Sunday:

I gave my talk.   I gave it on the Hope of Israel: Jesus Christ. I started with talking about Star Wars and the hope of the rebellion. Everyone seemed to like my Star Wars reference. I testified that Jesus Christ is the hope for all of us and that through the atonement we can receive that hope. I love talking and testifying of Jesus Christ.

We taught a man named Amaulo, from Brazil, later after church. We taught the restoration and the plan of salvation. He was really interested and he wants to come to church next Sunday.

Just as we were about to catch a bus, a man came up to talk to us. He said that he is from Cork and lives in China for work. He said he really wants to get baptized, but it’s hard because of he is always traveling back and forth from China. We talked to President Donaldson about it on the phone and he said that he could be baptized this Saturday, right before he goes back to China on Tuesday.  We are going to do an overview with him and make sure he is ready. What a miracle! This is going to be an exciting week!
It truly was a hard working week with a blessing of a wonderful miracle at the end of the week!

I miss you all

Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Joseph Udy



                                                     View Of Cork From The North Side 

Area In Cork