I am assuming you are excited to hear what happened for myself during transfers. Did I stay in Preston with Elder Cofone? Or did I leave? Or did he leave? Which one is it? You never would have guessed what happened, and neither did I. Enough with the suspense..... I am no longer in England, and I am also no longer in a busy city student filled area. I am on an even smaller Island, The Isle of Man. You should look it up. It has its own flag, currency and everything.
Why am I here? Well because the Lord wanted me here for some reason, all I can say is that I am very blessed. This is a very very unique experience especially for myself being a Chinese speaking missionary. As President Bullock said earlier when we got into the mission, he wanted us to be able to see different parts of the mission during the summer if possible. The Isle of Man is supposedly the most beautiful part of the mission. (I will have to take many many more photos than I have been. :)) Missionaries are only sent to the Isle for two transfers at most because it is so secluded from the rest of the mission. Also I had to take a 3 hour ferry ride from England ALL BY MYSELF!!! It was scary......
My new companion is Elder Sturt. He has been on the Isle for a transfer and will be going home after this one. Needless to say he is a top notch missionary who loves the work. Seeing as I just got here I don't know much but I am very excited for all of the experiences we will be able to have and the things I will be able to learn from the people here, my companion and the ward. He is from Sandy Utah and will be going back to the University of Utah for school. It is ok, we will get along just fine. :)
We met a recent convert family of 9 months last night and they are absolutely amazing!!!! You would never know they had just joined the church. They actually played a joke on me and got us to tract the door and pretend they were potential investigators. That went well until I saw a large binder saying our family history with an Ensign on top of it!! They have a thirteen year old daughter named Hanna who looks and reminds me sooooo much of Keana it is really strange. I have never had dinner with a family before on my mission and I must say that it was really refreshing.
So how about my Chinese calling? Put on hold? Absolutely not!!! Of course I will still have my language study for an hour every day and Elder Sturt says he wants to learn as much as possible during this transfer. He will be a big help in keeping my Chinese up this summer with the lack of students. But guess what?! Of the 10 or so Chinese people on the Island (Who own chippies) they are teaching 5!! One of the reasons I am here I know. When they found out Elder Sturt said that they were super excited to actually be able to understand someone. I hope my Chinese doesn't disappoint. Elder Sturt has been talking me up big time. Haha, I love Elder Sturt. I went on exchange with him once in Preston when he was an Assistant. I am very blessed to be able to work with him at this time.
This transfer is going to be crazy busy with President Bullock leaving and President Preston coming in. We will actually only be on the Isle for 4 of the 6 weeks out of the transfer because of logistics and cost. It means I just have to learn really, really fast while with Elder Sturt on the Isle. Also right now they have a bullet bike race that is world famous and there are people from all over the world here. You should look it up. It is called the Isle of man TT race. It is for the whole week.
Well time has run out, I have so much more to say but have no time so I will post what I wrote to President Bullock so you can know a bit more about my last week in Preston.
"This past week seems a blur now that I am on the Isle of Man and so much has happened in the last two days. Looking at the schedule for us here on the Isle and being off, it is going to be great fun memorizing every single fact about the Isle of Man before Elder Sturt leaves. It is a good thing I love a challenge. I am very excited for this unique opportunity that I never thought I would have being a Chinese speaking missionary. Elder Sturt says that I will be able to use my Chinese skills quite a bit here and I am very excited for that. I also feel blessed for this opportunity that I will have to serve with Elder Sturt for a transfer. He is an amazing missionary and I am looking forward to learning a lot from him. The Island, what little I have seen, is absolutely beautiful!
The day before I left to come here to the Isle I was able to go on Exchange from Elder Merl. I enjoyed this opportunity to gain a closer relationship with him and see a side to him that I did not know before. One thing that I truly learned from Elder Merl was his complete and utter love that he had for all of the people that we met. We were blessed with an on the spot lesson and despite the frustrating way the investigator was acting Elder Merl kept calm, patient, and continued to show love for this man. After the lesson he turned to me and said, "I understand that he was a hard case, but Elder Fawcett, he is a son of God as well." The true charity that he showed is something that I will be working on specifically in this transfer. He also gave me a great commitment to express my love for my companion in words at least once every day. This is something that I know I need to work on. I really love my companions, but I don't express that love nearly enough.
I am grateful for the time that I had to serve in Preston with Elder Cofone and around Elder Boswell & Merl. I think almost every day of how blessed I am to be serving here in the EMM around people who have truly become and are working with all of their might to get there. Elder Cofone and I were able to go through some really blessed experiences and also some not so great ones now and again. The love I have for Elder Cofone is one full of respect. He is an Elder who diligently seeks to become better and is always humble in doing so. He is going to be a great strength to the mission while he is here."
I love you all and thank you for your love and support. Keep up the great work and continue to seek those missionary opportunities!!!
Elder Fawcett
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