Elder Thomas James Nielsen: Adventures and learning sign language

Hey everyone!

This week has been a slow one that is for sure. Monday was the dreaded dodge call. And the news came in that I was leaving Kidderminster. It was a shock to both me and my companion, Elder Larsen. We both thought for sure we would have one more transfer together. But water under the bridge. I moved to Worcester. It is pronounced Wooster or Wusta like I mentioned last week. The spelling over here is really cool. The names of the places in Wales are worse then England. Worcester is bigger than Kidderminster. It is a City and to be considered a City it has to have a Cathedral or some paper from the Queen stating that it is a City. But it is double to triple the size of Kiddy. We have two sets of Missionaries here so pretty big. But that was pretty much Monday.

Tuesday had been a very busy day. Since I was leaving Kiddy, I packed for a couple of hours and then said goodbye to the people in the Branch and got things ready for the new Elder that was coming in to Kidderminster. Tuesday night is a bitter sweet moment for Missionaries when we are transferred. We gain so many friendships with the people that we work with it is hard to move on. We went to the store and bought pizza, garlic bread, Oreo, and Reese's. We pretty much had one last parting meal as companions. It was really fun.

Wednesday was travel all day. Elder Larson and I jumped on the train with my bags and bike. Traveled to Birmingham Moore Street. Where we met some other Elders at Birmingham New Street and this is where Elder Larsen and I went our different ways. I jumped on a train to the Mission Home with another Elder and Elder Larsen went back to Kidderminster with his new companion. I traveled to the Mission Home and jumped on a coach (charter bus) and traveled down to Glouster. There I met my new companion and road the train up to Worcester. If you look at a map that was the wrong way to do it. I could have trained from Kidderminster to Worcester in about twenty minutes. But whatever.

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday was pretty much just salvage what was left of the week with visits and getting to know the new area that I am in. The one cool thing that happened is that I get to learn a language in this area.! The Ward that I am serving in has a couple of deaf people. So once a week the Elders learn British Sign Language. Can you believe it! It was quite a shock. But the cool thing is that the Elders sign the Sacrament Prayer and try (you see I wrote the word try) to sign the rest of the meetings. There are two members who can sign but the Elders are back up.

Today, Monday, we started our p-day at about 8 a.m. in the morning. There is an area called Great Malvern. It has a set of hills that inspired the author Tolkien for areas in the book Lord of the Rings. The area is the White Mountains. So we hiked all the way up to the top hoping that the fog was going to lift. So we hiked and got to the top and the fog didn't lift. It was cool and humid but was a fun hike to get to see some of the beautiful areas of England. There are many natural springs that you can drink from on our hike. But only one is "safe". I say "safe" because the City looks after and takes care of it. I bet we could have gotten water from the other springs but the sign strongly recommended that we boil the water before drinking, so I didn't chance getting something that would put me on my butt (or my butt on the John) so I passed on that. HA HA

The High counselor for our Ward spoke on Sunday about building Zion. He talked about what Zion should be and how we can build it. It was a very good talk. He said that Zion can be achieved with obedience to commandments and keeping covenants. He said that he felt like there is a Zion built in the MTC (Mission Training Center) because of the unity that the Elders and Sisters have. So we need to build where we stand. We shouldn't think that moving to a different area or a new Ward will help build Zion. We need to build unity where we are now in our own Wards, Stakes and neighborhoods.

It has been a good week full of new experiences in a new area, Ward, companion but still the wonderful people of England. I love my Mission, this Gospel and the people that I am surrounded with.

Make it a great week!

Elder Nielsen

Below are some pictures from my p-day of the White Mountains in the City, Great Malvern.