The Start of a New Day

I am finally back behind the controls of the blog. I've taken some time off since I've been back but I feel this blog is good and mainly for me anyways. This will be a place where I can vent and share how I feel and all of you folk can see it too. I'm hoping to give updates each week from my life, but will primarily focus on how things go after serving my mission. It was a big part of my life, a right of passage if you will, that has deeply affected me and always will. Life is a bumpy road and this will be my way of tracking it.

Since I've been back I've caught up on movies and shows, read some good books, given 5 talks in church, been to the temple, made some new friends, rekindled old friendships, saw family, spent time with family, look for a job, looked some more for a job, looked at going to school, etc, etc, etc... Most importantly I've striven to keep the good habits I developed. I feel a bit overwhelmed some times but those habits keep me going and saying "it's the start of a new day."

Dear Fam,

 

Hey it's been another long week. We had a lot going on this week. I had to exchange with the other Elders from monday to wednesday. It was a lot and a lot of finding. To be honest I really hate finding. We spend far too much time knocking doors and talking to people on the street and then have our members tell us, "Why do you go work in nicer areas?" Well if you don't like the people we find then you can go and find someone for us please. We then had a blitz with the zone leaders for half the day on wednesday. That was after the district meeting the I had to do. I have to do another one this week too. I then had a District leader council meeting on saturday that I had to report about the district and the individual missionaries etc... crazy stuff.

 

I feel a lot like I am hitting the wall lately. Like I'm trying to sprint to the end but something  keeps getting on my way. I don't know what it is. I want to do better just lacking something. So ya. Things will hopefully start looking up this week. It needs to this week. We got to get people to church or they won't be able to get baptized before I go.

 

Elder Brown is difficult. He's up and down. Some days he's really good and other days he's just not bothered. He'll find some potentially people and then forget about them and not mention them to me. Ugh. I know he wants to but he doesn't show me much support. It's difficult when you have a load to do and to report upon.

 

Well I don't know much to report upon this week. We had some little miracles here and there but no luck with getting people to church. We have such great and nice people we are teaching and finding but they aren't going forward like we want them to. So this week is going to change. We'll fix it. I know that it'll be way better.

 

Thanks mom for the £££ so I can get a new suit. Devin I hoped you had a fun birthday. It sounds like a blast. I'm jealous of the snowboarding. I hope the snow is still good. Myranda... you should look up a SNL skit that Taylor Lautner was in. It's him and someone else trying to get the sibling to surprise their parents that they are expecting. One of the siblings (Kristen Wiig) just goes completely nuts. That should've been my reaction. ;) I remember it from before I left. It's hilarious. Anyways I hope you all have good weeks.

 

Love Elder Dudgeon

Dear Folks at home,

 

Well so this was an interesting week. We had new years which was alright. Everything just full working days still. Kind of tough with how crazy people are. As well as Grimsby Town had a football match on New Years Day so you can imagine how rowdy people were, how cranky they were, how drunk they were, and how much they wanted to talk to us. Well not too much that last one.

 

It's a bit of a struggle to keep everyone excited right now about the work. It's trying to keep them positive and excited for the right reasons. It's hard during this holiday time but I know that it will get better. I can't think of many crazy exciting stories right now. Our zone leaders want to do a nerf gun war for our zone pday. Elder Brown and I are a bit dissappointed because thats kind of lame and we don't want to waste our money. Plus I would rather go do something really enlgishy for my last p-day as a zone. Oh well. Luckily Elder Brown and I have some flogged guns in the flat that we can use so no worries. The other elders in the district just went out and bought some for like £40 or $75 really. No way would I ever do that. So ya thats not too exciting.

 

Oh I do remember a story. We got back in contact with the couple I found on exchange and so Elder Brown and I are teaching them. Well this last weekend the Louth Elders had a baptism and since they just have a rented hall and not their own chapel they come to us for the font. So it was easy to get people there for us and we got this couple to come. They showed up and looked really nice. All in their Sunday best and they really enjoyed the service. It was pretty neat. So we have them scheduled for baptism our last weekend in the mission and we hope they will achieve it. We got a couple more people we are working with too. I hope to have at least one before I leave. Then it'll be a baptism in every area.

 

Well I hope you are all good. Thanks everyone for telling me how much longer I have left and that the time will go by really quick.. Cheers. I am excited about seeing all of you though. I miss you. Ta for now

 

Love Elder Dudgeon

Dear Family,

 

Hey so good to hear from all of you this week. It's been a tough week. A bit of a struggle really but we will continue. We just got some devestating news that the 2.1 is closing down and they are splitting up the Elders. It's because of the missionaries going home before Christmas. So I've had to deal with 2 complaining missionaries this weekend. Not too fun. I was a also a bit frustrated because I liked having the larger district and and a 4 man flat now it gets smaller and just me and Elder Brown. I'm alright with it but I felt it helped me stretch myself further. But After praying about it and contemplating it a lot I realize that it's been a real answer to my prayers. One of the things I wanted when moving to Grimsby was to start learning all the lessons I needed to and that I could before I go home. I think these 4 weeks with these Elders has provided me with more opporunities to learn and now with them leaving I have even more to learn. So the Lord is just blessing me with more opportunities.

 

As I said though this week was rough. It was a bit slow but this week will sure keep u busy with taking over the potentials and investigators 2.1 had. Including the lady we found on exchange. They got back in contact with her because she didn't hold her next appintment but it turned out that her husband had a heart attack. She also has another friend in the hospital who's really sick. She is such a wonderful lady and has probably been at the hospital nonstop with everything. I hope we get to keep teaching her though and help them feel the peace and comfort of the gospel.

 

Elder Brown and I are going to be taking some pictures today and doing a bit of souvenir shopping. So i hope to find some things for everyone and send some nice pictures next week.

 

Well I got to keep this short so we can get the 2.1 elders over to the train station with all their luggage. It's a lot of stuff. I love you all though and send my love and Christmas wishes.

 

Elder DUDGEON

Dear Family,

 

It's been an ok week. We have had some hard times this week around the zone. We are having a hard time getting people to come to church which is not good. This last week though Grimsby 2.1 and us found 9 new investigators. Some of them are really good. Some will drop by the wayside pretty quick I feel if they haven't already but it's just neat to see how many people are here and willing to listen in this area. I went on exchange this week with one of the 2.1 elders. We knocked into a woman who was kind of standoffish at first but as I was persistent with her she said out of nowhere that we could come in out of the cold. (which was great because like 10 minutes later it started down pouring.) Well we hear how she lost her faith in God because of her old church and how the leaders of it treated her and her husband, She just had a lot of questions too which weren't answered. It was scary at first because the way she was describing her church sounded a lot like ours like word of wisdom qualities and law of chastity. Well. it wasn't our church though just another strange christian church. It sounded like the kept her from helping others because she wasn't a full member of their church nor apart of it's leadership. Well she was very prepared for the message of the restoration and the gospel in it's fullness. It's amazing to see how it can bless some one just to start receiving true answers and understanding the things God has told us to do. She prayed at the end which was amazing and she thanked God for sending us to help her renew her faith. The other elders are left to teach her this week and see how things progress.

 

Today I have to leave it short though. We are just getting back to grimsby at 5:00pm because we had a inter zone P-day. We played american football against the Sheffield zone and we whooped them. I scored the first touch down. One of the receivers tried to catch the ball under pressure and it just bounced off of him and into my hands and I was able to run it pass a couple defenders to the end zone. We then played a game of football and beat them there. I keep playing goalie and everyone asks if I played in high school or college. Nope. I just got a sense of what I am doing. So that was fun today to see a lot fo people. It was good to get out of the way because it took a lot of planning and things to get it done and so I am really tired. Oh well I move on.

 

I hope you are all doing well. I miss you. I hope things go well this winter with Myranda wrapping up school and Sarah too. I'm praying for both of you. I hope mom and devin start feeling better. And mom enjoys not being a disabled orangutan any more. Love you all

 

Elder dudgeon

Dear Family,

 

So the excitement of the transfer has sort of worn off and now the real hard work begins. We had some disappointments this week with some solid people who we thought were going to investigate the church. I've never had as many people give us their details and say we can come by but then flog us later. The whole district is facing this problem so we are finding ways to work harder and stay excited. We have a really young missionary in our district who's from Norway who's really gotten excited and is doing some good hard work and it's wearing off a bit on the district which is great. I have a few ideas to band the elders together to really push hard. Grimsby is a blessed area but it is a difficult one.

 

So on Sunday we went and bore our testimonies (the missionaries). I kind of rebuked the ward. The first Sunday was a stake conference and so there was multiple missionaries and multiple wards there but nobody really in any of the wards came and introduced themselves to us. Some of the excuses were they didn't know which ward we were over but it doesn't really matter. If you are a warm and friendly person and not embarrassed of who you are you would go up to everyone and say who you are. So I told the ward that I was a bit saddened because I know that they are better then that. I mean I can go and introduce myself to people which I was doing but it's sad when you say 'hello I'm Elder Dudgeon' and they just say hello and walk by. But I bore some powerful testimony after wards and I know that it hit several of the members because they did come up to me and introduce themselves. As well as our Bishop reached out to the other Grimsby 1 missionaries and asked if there was anything he could do for them. I really appreciated that. The wards here have what they call friendly rivalries but really those things can get in the way from working and growing together. So Sunday was good. we got some LA there but no investigators yet. We'll keep trying though.

 

It was good to hear that Devon and Whitney had a great weekend. I was really happy for both of them. It's neat to hear about Taylor coming home soon as well. Too bad he'll be going straight out to school. I would've loved to catch up with him again. Oh well though theres always more time and more people. Well I miss you all. Talk to you soon.

 

Cheerio

Elder Dudgeon

Hey family,

 

How goes it this week. Sounds like everyone is doing well. Getting ready for the holiday season I see. It sure is hear they have been putting out the big Christmas trees around the towns. Let me tell you about my first few days in Grimsby. It is so beautiful! We go running on the beach for morning exercise. It has been cold but not too cold. My companion, Elder Brown and I are planning on going even in the cold. It gets us going and awake in the morning. Elder Brown is so great. He's a great missionary. He's from Bountiful Utah. He really knows how to work hard and keeps me organized. I really can help him with getting out there a bit more and being constantly bold. We really Help each others strengths and weaknesses which is great! More about the area. It's quite small and it's split into 2 with the Grimsby 1 Elders. then we have a third team, Grimsby 2.1 who can go into both areas. They are white washing but they live with us. They are so fantastic. Both kind of young missionaries but hard workers and have a lot of faith and we all get along really well. We really excite one another. One is from Las Vegas and the other one is from Sweden.

 

This week we have a had a lot of finding. We found 3 people though since I came in and we scheduled 2 of them for baptism and are set on teaching them more this week. We aer hoping to have a couple baptism in the month of December. So let me tell you about of the people. Elder Brown had contacted this woman a week ago. She was leaving her house and walking away but shouted back her details and said we could come by. Well last  night we felt we needed to knock a certain street. So we go there and Elder Brown remembered that this woman said we could come by. He had scratched off in his planner because they had already tried by with no one in and she seemed not that solid. But since we felt impressed to go to the street we tried by again and got in. Her power was out because she needed a friend to come pay her money so she could get more. So we taught her by candle light the first lesson about the restoration. Then we invited her to be baptized. It was so neat that setting. She is very prepared too and is really nice.

 

We had stake conference this weekend here in the Hull stake. President and Sister Lindley spoke which was great. They talked a lot about missionary work of course. It was a record setting stake conference because we became the first stake in England to broadcast a stake conference to another building since the stake is big and so spread apart. So that was neat to be a part of.

 

Well I got to get going. I miss you all. Please don't worry about the Christmas presents as much I just need a little $$$ well £££ you know what I mean. Love you all.

 

Elder Dudgeon