Skyler Ford's Manchester England Mission

1/21/13

Hey Everyone,

It was another good week. The year mark has come and gone...crazy. I remember in my first area when Elder Corbin and Elder Herrin both hit there year marks in my first transfer. I thought they were so old. We went out to eat to celebrate. We were going to do the same thing for mine but we ended up not even having time for dinner. Blackburn is such a big area and we have a lot of travel in between appointments.

This week was full of a lot of events. I passed my driving test on Tuesday. I'm not a legally licensed British driver and apparently it's the only license that is accepted in any country all over the world so that's pretty nice. It should get me a pretty good discount on car insurance because it is much more difficult to get a license here than in America. Some missionaries have failed the test 3 or 4 times! I'm glad to have that done now I can drive on the crazy, narrow English roads.

We had specialized trainings on Thursday as well with Individual interviews with President Preston. I love those so much because you have 20-30 minutes all by yourself with President Preston to talk about whatever you need. I've had a lot of my questions answered in past interviews. This one was really good as well. He came out teaching with us after that as well which is a pretty special experience. We went and taught Steve and Naomi and there family. He got to witness the miracle first hand! They are doing so good. Steve ordered the Book of Mormon Cd's for his car while he drives to work and they'll both be speaking at the mission home fireside later this month. Elder Reali and I bought them scriptures(Quads) at the distribution center this week as well. I'm looking forward to giving them to them. One of the best gifts you could ever get.

This week was freezing cold. We got a pretty good amount of snow too. It's the first time I've seen rel snow in my entire time here. It makes missionary work pretty interesting. My shoes have no traction on them because they're worn out so it's almost impossible to walk up icy hills and England right now is full of them. Elder Reali thinks it's pretty funny.

We're still on the hunt for people to teach. Nothing new as of last week. We've got some pretty good referrals from members this week though so we should build up a decent teaching pool in the next little while. We've got about three weeks left in this transfer then there's a good chance I'll be leaving Blackburn. I never stay anywhere too long it seems.

This week is going to be another good one. We have Sports day this Thursday in Manchester. Every six months the mission gets together for an Entire day just to play sports. So fun! I haven't picked up a basketball in about 6 months

I'll probably be extremely sore. I'm so out of shape. I'll be going on an exchange this week in Rawtenstall as well. It'll be nice to see a different area. I haven't left Blackburn for 9 weeks.