First Week in the Field

Monday, April 15th 2013


Sams companion in the field is Elder Blanco who is Mexican but from Utah. He gets on really well with his companion and he thinks he is an excellent trainer. Sam's first area to serve in is the Highland Hills Zone which he loves! He will be in the same area for another 11 weeks (12 weeks total) He lives in Palmilla Apartments on Neuvo Leon Street. 

The weather is so nice, its in the 80's but should be going into the 90's soon! The evening is great because its warm and you can hear the crickets. 

The first day Sam arrived in his area he had to order a bike. Luckily one of the members who he had only met for a few minutes, trusted Sam enough to lend him one of his bikes, which he said he never does AND paid for his new bike online before he gave him the money. Sam didn't take his wallet to the members house as he wasn't expecting to be buying anything!

The bike is a steel, single speed road bike which he got cheaper than most missionaries paid for their mountain bikes! He says its a really nice ride and since it is so dry over there the bike doesn't even get dirty. The reason he chose single speed is because there is nothing to maintain apart from the brakes and oiling the chain. 

Sam was knocking on some doors and he got in on his first door!!! The guy answered and said "I'm not interested, come in" which was a little confusing but it turned out that there was somebody in whose parents were members of the Church who he thought might be interested. Sam isn't nervous when tracting and he managed to get his first return appointment with a guy named Devonta who is Pentacostal. The only thing he doesn't like about knocking on doors is that it takes up a lot of time and there isn't a load of success. He had an experience which would never happen in England, he was knocking doors and one of the houses turned out to be a members home who invited them in and then invited them back for dinner for subway sandwiches!

Sam and his companion get fed by a member family every single day so they only need to buy food for lunch and breakfast. After writing emails on a Monday morning they have to go food shopping. Sam gets the pasta sachets which are really nice and really filling, also he gets 'real' pasta and some different soups which he can mix in as a quick meal. The budget is $25 per week for food, but there is stuff left over from the week before so food isn't a problem!

Sam also got his first 'soft' baptismal commitment, this is to ask someone when they know what we are teaching is true, and ask if they would commit to be baptised. Sam was a bit nervous about asking since the lesson was going so well and he didn't want to make Sean feel uncomfortable, but he accepted and he seems really receptive to what they are teaching him.

The Elders spend a lot of time trying to contact less active and part member families, they also get given lists by Relief Society and Priesthood leaders of people to contact, so they don't really spend a lot of time tracting. This seems to be why the work has more success over there as plenty of people are already familiar with the Church.

They are also going to start teaching member families and give them a Book of Mormon to place with someone, then they will follow up with whoever they give it to. Sam is hoping to see some success by this method!

Sam wanted to let his family know not to worry about him as he is not homesick!

The MTC

Thursday, April 4th 2013


Sam arrived safely at the Provo MTC at 11pm due to getting lost on the way there. When he arrived at his dorm, Elder Nakatsuka from Japan started getting dressed really really quickly thinking he was late for class as he thought it was 11am not 11pm! 

Sam had to play 'musical dorms' as he got moved from a temporary dorm to another temporary dorm in a different building. Then at 4am he had to move dorms again since the people in his dorm were leaving, then when finally assigned to a permanent dorm he had to move AGAIN!! The good news is that the new dorm is designed for 4 missionaries but it is just Sam and his companion so they have loads of room for everything! 

His MTC companion is Elder Trent Whiting from Grantsville, Utah who is going to the Toronto, Canada mission. 

There was a meeting with around 300 people in the room, a list of countries was read out and people from that country had to stand up. Sam was the only person from England so he had to stand up on his own and tell everyone where in England he was from! 

Sam loves the gym at the MTC. He used some of the weight equipment, one of them was a squat machine and he managed to push 300lbs but one of the Elders in his district (Elder Karl) managed to push 400lbs as if it was nothing! They had exercise bikes and Sam managed to cycle 1 mile in under 2 minutes which he was happy about!

On a Wednesday and a Sunday they have ice cream days, so he had ice cream with hot fudge, caramel, crushed oreos and m&ms which was the nicest thing he has ate at the MTC!

Sam is looking forward to doing another endowment session at the temple.

Sam has had a lot of practise teaching so he is much more confident talking in front of people now, however he does have in-field orientation soon which means he will be tracting and street contacting.

Here is Sams group from the MTC and also the photo that every missionary does in the MTC which is pointing where you are serving your mission on the huge world map!

At the Airport...

Monday, March 25th 2013

Early morning wake up at 5am! Sam didn't get much sleep anyways so it was probably a good thing to get up that early! Auntie Tracey called at 5:05am just to make sure we didn't sleep in and to make sure that everyone was awake! We aimed to leave the house at 5:45am but with the last run around we didn't leave the house until nearly 6am. We arrived at the airport just after 6am and as Sam was getting his luggage out of the car he noticed that Chris turned up to surprise him! Heading towards the revolving doors to enter the airport, Sam halted and said "One moment.." He held onto the railings and bent over and starting gagging, he stood back up and said "Oh... I feel better now!" Chris found this hilarious as Sam wasnt even sick but said to him "All you did was bark at the floor and now you feel better!?!"

We all went over to the British Airways Check-in area where Sam had to get his files out to find the information needed to print his tickets out at the machine. Sam was getting worried as the information he was putting into the machine wasn't getting accepted! He finally put the correct information in and got his ticket printed out. 

Sam checked in his luggage for the whole flight and got his tickets for the rest of the journey too. (Newcastle - Heathrow, Heathrow - Dallas, Dallas - Salt Lake City)

By the time he finished checking in his Auntie Tracey & Auntie Pam arrived at the airport.
We found a seating area in a restaurant that wasn't open yet so we could all sit round and talk. Sam wasn't doing much talking as he felt very nervous, at one point he couldn't stand up as he felt sick so my dad passed him a Monster Munch crisp packet just in case! 

It came to about 7am and Sam wanted to go to the departure lounge. We had a final family photo, a final hug each and the crying started! We waved Sam off and he didn't want to turn around but as the lady at the desk checked his tickets/passport he had to go down to the bottom and turn back round and come back facing us. This did make us laugh though! As soon as he had gone it finally hit that he is now gone for 2 whole years! We tracked his flights via real time on our iPhones, we could see any delays and where his plane actually was!

This flight was only a quick flight as only about an hours journey. Sam was told he had to get a train to get to his next terminal so I think Sam may have spent that time worrying about where he would go when he lands! By the time he landed he didn't have much time left until his main flight from Heathrow - Dallas!

We were expecting to get a call off Sam to say he had missed his flight BUT we didn't thankfully! This was the longest flight as around 10 hours. Sam told us he didn't get much sleep on the plane but he was excited that he had his own TV screen which even had an episode of Modern Family on! The man he was sitting next to works with airplanes, he does the de-icing, re-fueling, maintenance and push-back so Sam talked to him for quite a while!

Dallas to Salt Lake is another short flight, around 3 hours. Sam said that when he reached border control he was asked for his call letter, he was told he could only let him in America for one year! Luckily he phoned someone who let him in for the full two years without any further questions!

 


Sam arrived a bit late but luckily he was being met at the airport by mams friend Susan and a long time friend Leanne! He didn't arrive at the MTC until 11pm as Susan got a bit lost trying to find where he needed to be!



Now his adventure officially starts.......

 

Farewell...

Sunday, March 24th 2013

Today was Sam's final Sunday at Newcastle Ward for 2 whole years! Family and friends travelled from all over to come and listen to his talk and to say their goodbyes. Sam's school friends came to support him and they filled the whole front row, there was so many people they had to open the curtains at the back! In fact, there was 112 people in total. (This also included special guests Jimmy, Merrill and Jay Osmond!!!)

Scott Walker was the first speaker and while he was speaking Sam nipped out of the room, people were wondering where he was gone but he was so nervous he went outside to be sick! Sam eventually came back in the room before Scott finished his talk and started with 'Thank Yous', he said it was hard to cram 20 years of Thank You's into a 10 minute talk. He started off by thanking his parents, he said he wanted to do this first as he didn't want to get too emotional at the end and also they deserve to be mentioned first. Just as he was about to talk about his Mam he got emotional and couldn't really get his words out but he controlled himself and gave a quote about mothers "God couldn't be everywhere so he created mothers." He didnt want to leave his Dad out so he gave a quote from President Thomas S Monson.

He then went on to thank his nursery teacher Jackie Houghton but he said how he couldn't remember much about those times. Even though Jackie couldn't visit today he said she had supported him leading up to his mission and even bought him his shoes for his mission. Next was Norma Johnson, his primary teacher, he told funny stories about how he was quite naughty with his friend Mark Fraser, they would purposely sing the wrong words, put their chairs facing the wrong way, throw their books up in the air when they were finished and how it hit Norma on the head, also one time when Mark wanted the swirly chair he pulled it away from the piano to sit on it and Norma was just about to sit on it so she fell on the floor!

Next he thanked his Young Men leaders and how his testimony really grew when studying the Doctrine & Covenants in Seminary with Susan Kelly. He also remembered the time he went home teaching for the first time with his Dad, he couldn't remember much about it but he got that confirming feeling that what he was doing what the right thing.

Sam then went on with his talk about missionary work and told the story about the missionary which was sent to England but was feeling really discouraged and wanted to come home so he wrote back home to his Dad, he then replied back to his son saying "Forget yourself and go to work". This missionary then later became Prophet of the church, President Gordon B Hinckley. Sam wants to use this as his motto for his mission!

After sacrament meeting we had a special Munch & Mingle with an amazing spread! Patrick Hoben said it was like a wedding! 

While everyone was eating his sister went around and asked people to draw a picture of themselves and write a message for him which was on a pillowcase that he would take with him.

Sam had a lovely chocolate Costco cake which he cut into while everyone give him 3 cheers!

Sam had his final catch up with his school friends and photos were taken and obviously uploaded to Facebook straight away! 

Then last of all family photos...

Once everyone had gone we remembered he needed to be set apart as an elder but Stake President wasn't there! We organised to go to Gateshead Chapel for 8pm that night, when we arrived Joe Kinghorn was just coming out of the office as he was sending his papers off to become a missionary too! Stake President spoke with just Sam for about 10 minutes then he had a lovely blessing and was officially a missionary!