February 14, 2011

Happy Valentines Day!!

Well for me life as a missionary is going well enough. This week has been a interesting week full of fun or at least learning experiences. There were just a couple I wanted to hit on specifically. About a week ago me and Elder Peterson had the opportunity to teach a very interesting Lesson with 7 college students all of them being English. I learned many new things from this lesson that will help me throughout my mission. The first one being Fake it till you make it.

By that I mean that as a missionary or anyone for that matter you have experiences and times when you don't know what you are doing and are very much out of your comfort zone and you don't know how you should handle it. Well a wise person once told me that if you start acting confident for long enough you will end up actually being that confident. Well I was out of my comfort zone and I was the one that needed to take control of the lesson. The lesson turned out a lot better than I thought it would, but that is because I acted very confident and they figured I was. This teaches us that the attitude you have is the one that makes the difference.

The other lesson I learned was that teaching seven of any type of person is really hard and most often than not, not very effective. There is too much peer pressure in the world and people who are not willing to stand up for what they really believe because they end up not knowing what they believe. If you don't stand for something you will fall for anything. It is sad to see that the world is full of followers and people who will not act for themselves because they don't know how to. I am thankful that my family has been able to teach me to act for myself and that you do so as well. So make sure you do so!!! :)

This last week we were able to take some of our investigators to watch the new Prophet of the Restoration DVD at the church and I once again felt that strong witness that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God and that Thomas S. Monson is one as well. That as we follow them, and I mean truly follow them, we will be blessed beyond our capacity to know. There is a reason they are called of God and when they are it means that God is behind them. When they say something it really matters. I love the knowledge that we have that through those prophets we can know how to live our lives best to have the most happiness and success.

In closing I have learned a lot this last week in regards to faith. We have 2 progressing Chinese investigators who have been having a hard time having that faith that is needed to continue to grow. They only sometimes keep their commitments because they don't actually believe that they will be blessed for their efforts. We try to tell them that it is a principle of action and it doesn't come super easy but it does come. My question is what brings faith? Why have faith and what motivates us to have that faith, what motivates us to action. I would like you to ask yourselves if your action and faith is promoted by Fear, Duty, or Love. I have learned that they difference between those answers is huge.

Coming on my mission I was probably at the stage of Duty. I was here because I knew I needed to be here. Yes I wanted to be here and help people, but was Love really my main reason for serving? I have slowly but surely come to understand what true love is and how it compels us to action of faith or any other principle of the gospel. The reason why Charity is so important is that when we have it we are not forced or coerced to do anything, but we WANT to do it because we love God and those that want to help us. I am thankful for this opportunity to learn and grow and to be a missionary to help others find the light of Christ. I would challenge all of us to ask ourselves why we are doing what we are doing, and how we can BECOME better.

I love you all and am thankful for your love and support. Keep up the good work and know that I love you and am praying for you. If you have any specific questions about anything let me know!!

Elder Fawcett

February 7, 2011

You were excited to hear about my transfer? I sure wasn't. It is hard to leave your area especially if it is your first area and especially if it is Liverpool. Liverpool was and is amazing and hope I get to go back there. Preston is a bit different than Liverpool that is for sure. It is much smaller and a University town. That means that most the people there are students and there are not too many of them. I have had a new experience of five or so people in a row just blowing right past me because they know exactly who I am because they have talked to us fifteen times. Fun stuff. Haha. No, we don't get to go to the temple any more than any other missionary does. The temple is actually in Chorley, not Preston, and yes it confuses me too why it is called the Preston Temple.

As of now it is kind of hard to tell you much of anything about the people we are teaching here in Preston because I am new and the record keeping has not been very good. One of the hardest things of a foursome is that people fall through the large cracks between the companions very easily. We are working on fixing the problem they have had in the past. Right now we have 3 progressing investigators. One whose name is Wayne who is from Northern Ireland is doing very well, I have not been able to teach him myself but he is great. Very excited with all the new things that he is being taught and is looking forward to his baptism on the 26th.

The next person is Sun. She is a Chinese student who I have still not met yet but supposedly she is really good. One of her main problems that I would ask you to pray for her about is her lack of enthusiasm in anything. She doesn't have much motivation to do anything and has a hard time being excited and all there during lessons. I hope she can continue to read and understand how the gospel can help her in her life.

The last is Liu. Once again a Chinese student studying International Business Communications. He was dated for baptism but we had to push it back another 3 weeks because we found out that he doesn't really have a belief in God and doesn't know how to find one. We shared with him the importance of Faith and Prayer and how he can find out for himself. He said he wanted to know for himself and that he would really try. He came to church yesterday but left after Sacrament Meeting because it is really boring for him. He doesn't understand a lot and he is a university student. I can't blame him too much. I
would ask you to pray for him to read and pray for himself so he can find out for himself.

The ward here in Preston is good. Not the strongest ward, but those that are there really seemed to enjoy it. I have been told that it is really hard to get the members to come out with us, but I hope we can change that here soon. We were able to do a role play on how to give out pass along cards. Hopefully that and the talk on missionary work from the Bishop will get them pumped to go DO something. The slight problem is that there are 6 missionaries in a ward of 60. That makes it hard to spread out the labor and have enough to go around. I am really looking forward to getting to know the ward members better and once again making good relationships for the rest of my life.

Preston is small as I said and we are only ever around the University area looking for Chinese students. We end up talking to alot of the same people again and they are starting to get annoyed with the continued efforts of us to talk to them. This is fun challenge that I look forward to tackling. Hopefully because we see people multiple times we can get good relationships with them. Hopefully. :) Also Preston is much much much rainier than Liverpool. It has rained constantly for the last two days and I have gotten soaked through 10 times now. I love it!! Kinda. It is a good thing I have a coat now,
thanks again!!

So as I told you, we are in a foursome with Elders Moss, Peterson, and Chan. We switch off companions every day depending on who needs to teach what. When we have a chinese investigator it usually ends up being me and Elder Chan or me and Elder Peterson. This has been a great challange for me to learn how to become more of a leader. How to take control of a lesson and guide it along best for the investigator. It has also been a test and builder of my chinese. I have already noticed a little change in my progress in Chinese because I don't have a fluent companion to rely on. Hard, but fun and rewarding at the same time.

I thank you for all of your love and support and letters. If there is anything I can help you with let me know. :)

Love you all,

Elder Fawcett

February 3, 2011

Short letter today because of time. Sorry for forgetting to tell you that transfers were coming up, but now you know they have happened. :) And yes I was transferred to Preston. Now I can say that I have gone through the worst part of my mission as of yet. Saying Goodbye.... I just hate goodbyes and this one was especially hard. I am going to miss the recent converts and members and my companions very much, but especially the recent converts. One of the recent converts Haoran cooked dinner for me and gave me a card. I in return gave him one of my BYU T-shirts. :)

 

Well I don't have too long, but a brief overview of what has happened. I am now in Preston in a foursome. Yes you read it right, a foursome. Who would have thought? I am now back with Elder Peterson, my companion from the MTC, Elder Moss and Elder Chan from Hong Kong. Unfortunately his Mandarin is supposedly worse than mine. Though he is working on it and should improve a lot faster than myself. I will definitely miss Liverpool, but new experiences await me here in Preston. I was able to help plant many many seeds in Liverpool and I know Elder Eliason and Elder Jin will do all they can to bring in the Harvest. Many souls will be saved because of their valiant efforts.

 

I hope that everyone is having a great week and that you will all be safe but have fun in all your doings. Keep your heads up and know that I love you, but more importantly the Lord loves you.

 

I love you all,

 

Elder Fawcett ( Elder Tap)

January 24, 2010

Yes Dad it is true, with 1 hour of computer time in the library sometimes it is hard to find enough time to write to the family after writing to the President and then reading the emails that I have received from the previous week. I also realized last week that I am filling some of my emails with information that is not necessarily useful, worthwhile, or informative. So, I have recommited to sending out better uplifting emails for the family to read. Also feel free to let me know what you want to know specifically or don't want to know at all and then I will write accordingly.

 

Lets see, the two investigators that we are teaching at the moment are a young man named Luke and a Chinese student named Angela. Luke we have taught twice and he has come to church. With him it is a bit hard because he is young at 18 and somewhat immature. He is very intellectual but doesn't always know what to do with that intellect. He had some good comments in church and seemed apt to learn, the only problem is he doesn't know how much he wants to know if there is a God. Our focus is to help him understand why a knowledge of Gods existence would be beneficial for him in his life.

 

Angela is a Chinese student who is very bright, has great English, wants to know more but is super busy with school and exams at the moment. We taught her once and she had many great questions and was very interested. We then ran into her on the street two days in a row and were able to find out that she had been reading a little and praying to know. She said that she felt great when she prayed, calm, happy and confident for her tests. She said that she thinks it helped her on her exams. I know it did. She is somewhat of a flirt which you really have to watch out for because we don't want to become the wrong kind of friends to investigators. Overall, after this week is over we should be able to teach more chinese students. Yeah!!!

 

Why do we get dropped? Whew, great question. Depends on a number of variables why certain investigators drop us. The week that we had double digit new investigators they were almost all college age students. The reason they drop us is becuase of fear of change and lack of commitment and true lack of a broad vision of what this could mean for them. Also they are not willing to take the time to actually see if it IS true. They key in conversion is the BOM and of they are not willing to read the BOM themselves they are certainly not going to find out that it is true, and if they never do that, we as a church are not much different than any other.

 

Loss of contact is another factor in losing investigators. After you teach them the first time, you really really really need to teach them no later than 2 days later. To do so will mean too much time for the adversary to distract them from the real importance of our message. Rarely do we see a person again if they set up an appointment for the next week at the same time. Constant contact is what brings the people the spirit everyday. Also people are just too "busy". If I had a dollar every time someone told me they were to busy I would be very rich. :)

 

The saddest thing is that people do not know God and could care less if he WAS there. Everyone is about me me me. They say they want to be happy and they do what THEY think is right to make them happy. Some people are happy without God, but that is because they don't know what more happiness they could have. I don't blame any of them, this world has been raised up to have no belief in God. Why should they listen to people who do. Sometimes I wonder if I would have accepted God if I was not born a member of this church. Fortunatley I was and do know that God lives and loves us. Now to find out how to let other people find out for themselves that he is there....

 

Have a great week my wonderful Family!!

 

Elder Fawcett

January 17, 2010

First off, I am sorry something so boring as my weekly letters is the highlight of the week! I feel bad because most of my weekly letters are completely the same now. Went out finding, taught lessons, found new investigators and wallah! There is the week!! :) Haha, I hope that they don't seem like that to you, but just in case I will try to think of more unique or specific items to talk about.

 

Well for this week.... There is not much new that has happened, but I will try to make it slightly interesting for your sakes. :) Tuesday we had a District Meeting with the focus being on planning. It was a perfect focus for me because our daily and weekly planning has been a little less than good. Our main problem has been planning with exactness and with one purpose in mind. Also one of my three goals for this upcoming year is better specific planning. Once I get down all the specifics about how I will go about completing it and my other goals I will let you know.

 

On our way to that District Meeting we were a bit late (again) so we were running and Elder Jin hit and edge and twisted his ankle. So we ended up carrying him the rest of the way to the meeting and back home. So we ended up having to stay in that day. I took advantage of that time to study some much needed Chinese. We got him crutches and we were back at it the next day. A bit slower than usual, but back at it nonetheless.

 

I than had the opportunity to go on another exchange, but this time with Elder Sanders (Elder Moses our DL companion). He came out the same time as me and it was nice to work with him and to help each other out with our goals and improvements. We were up in Crosby and boy did we talk to some crazy people or what. Twice Elder Sanders almost got hit before we booked it out of there and then half the time people were yelling at us. It was a lot of fun. :) It is really interesting to see how people react to you talking about God. It seems to be a subject most people get REALLY uncomfortable with and that results in anger. They figure what does a 19 year old punk in a suit trying to help them out think he is doing. I think I will just yell and swear at him until he goes away.

 

Unfortunately because of my slightly sarcastic attitude and frustration I say things that I probably shouldn't say. For example: Hello ma'm, we are sharing a message about how God has a pla... Swearing mingled with yelling.... Well ma'm I am only worried about you and your families salvation. Escalated swearing and yelling. Then I leave. :) Then the man next to us had heard us and I try to talk to him and he says leave me alone in a less nicer way and I said, "are you going to yell at me as well." The answer was yes. This world is full of very old babies. :)

 

I know I need to control myself, but sometimes it is so hard. :) This week was hard at first. We were dropped by all 11 of our new investigators from last week. Then we were blessed because of diligent efforts with 6 new investigators, 3 of which are super solid. I testify that God helps those most who work hard and help themselves while calling on his name.

 

The other thing this week I really learned was the importance of attitude once more. Lately it has been hard with Chinese and the lack of speaking thereof and I was having a bad attitude towards it and that was effecting my missionary work as well as my companions. I was then chastened because of the love my companion Elder Eliason has for me, and now I know and understand now more than ever the impact attitude has on your life. Now I have recommitted to working hard, and working hard with a good attitude.

 

I hope everything is going well for all of you and that everyone is having a great week.

 

I love you all, keep the faith!!

 

Elder Fawcett

January 10, 2011

This week HAS been a splendid and spiritual week, along with one of the best of my mission. There was nothing super spectacular, just a combination of events, experiences and feelings of the spirit that made it great.

 

As I already told you I was sad to see my trainer "dad" Elder Smart leave Liverpool and me and Elder Jin behind. It was sad, but it allowed us all to gain new experiences to help us learn and grow. We were able to show him around the city and introduce him to the ward members which helped me take a bit more responsibility and learn to trust myself.

 

Elder Eliason and I get along well, then again I think elder Eliason gets along with everyone. But he is helping me to become more bold and to sharpen my teaching skills. He is also a very good mediator between me and Elder Jin, something that i need to work on, because like you said dad, you tend to lean towards the people you get along with and that just creates stress and problems between the other. So thank you for pointing that out as well.

 

This week we were super blessed to find many many new investigators and we had many appointments. So it was hectic, missing a few dinners here and there, and we were completely tired (shattered in British) at the end of the night and mornings. But truly it feels so good to know you are doing your best to serve the lord and help others in any way possible.

 

I was able to go on companion exchanges for two days with my District Leader and I learned a lot from him in regards to keeping your head up and just doing your best. He is a great District Leader and I feel so grateful to be surrounded by missionaries really striving to be sacred. That is something that I really love about my mission here, the EMM is one of the most obedient missions there is which is largely in part to President Bullock. I don't mean to brag, but I truly think this mission is special and I feel it is because of President Bullock and the vision he has that most of the missionaries have caught. This mission is helping change my life now and forever.

 

We had a Zone conference that outlined the goals and the mission plan for the upcoming year and I am excited to be a part of it. Thank you parents and family for helping me become what i was before my mission to prepare me for my learning. I am constantly told I am ahead of the game as a missionary only in my 2nd transfer and I know that is because of the way I was brought up to love the gospel and to work hard.

 

Sorry to cut the letter short and not explain too much that happened this week, but time is short. Just know that I love and appreciate every one of you and that each of you need to have a good week for me ok? Ok. By the way dad, I have borrowed your quote "Life is good because the gospel is true" for my mission standard. So thank you for that!

 

Love you all,

 

Elder Fawcett

January 4, 2011

Well everything is going well here in Liverpool. We had a great New Years Eve and Day. Wow that seems so far away. On New Years Eve we stayed in our flat and wrote letters and just relaxed and boy was that relaxation needed. On New Years Day we went to the Church at 11:00 am and stayed there most of the day. We were blessed with the opportunity to attend a baptism of yet another Chinese Student. Her name is Fiona and she is the most energetic Chinese person I have ever seen!! The baptism was wonderful and full of the spirit. Two recent converts gave talks on the importance of baptism and it was so touching to see the strength of their testimonies in inviting another member into the church.

 

The rest of the day we played basketball in the Gym, Football afterwords and then of course we ate. That night we relaxed as well knowing it would be the last time in a long time. Missionary work is hard, fun, but most of all it is tiring. You get in bed, fall asleep and the next thing you know it is 6:30 and time to get up. The same thing happens every night and I don’t understand how. I am sure I will get more and more used to it as time goes on. Sometimes the hardest part is Sacrament meeting, sitting down for three hours in a nice heated building. I have to keep reminding myself of what Dad says about maintaining the trust of the members and not looking like a bum.

I really don’t know what to say now, it has only been half a week and one and a half of those days were not much. Let me think of some interesting things that have happened recently. Oh yes! Funny story #1: We were at a members home for Christmas and we were introducing ourselves and Elder Jin was saying he was from China. A 16 or so year old boy asked what part and Elder Jin told him. The boy then replied, “hmm, I don’t know where that is, the only city in China that I know is Tokyo, how far away is it from there?” Haha, one of the funniest things I have ever heard. J

Also the other day we were returning to our flat and we were about to open our outside door but a lady opened it up from the inside looked at us with a puzzled expression on her face. So we tried to walk in but she held up her hand and said, "no want". So we tried to explain to her that we lived there but she didn't speak any English. So we stood there for a couple of minutes explaining we were residents there. We ended up pointing to the top floor and then back to us saying we LIVE here. Basically we almost had our own door shut in our faces while on a mission. Fun times.

 

Everything is going well here, we have been having a hard time finding new people to teach because all the Chinese went back to China for the long break and everyone else didn't want to schedule something during the break. But last night we were able to find 4 new investigators which meant we met the standard on the first night of the new week. I am looking forward to doubling that number hopefully. All I know is God blesses those who try their bests.

 

Elder Eliason is a great missionary and I am learning every day. I have good relationship with him now and I hope to strenghten it. Unfortunately me and Elder Jin are not getting along at all which mostly stems from the not speaking Chinese. This is seriously one of the most frustrating situations of my life. My Chinese has gotten worse since I have gotten here in England. One Chinese Recent Convert looked at me puzzled and said, "why has your Chinese gotten worse?" Those blunt words hit me hard and I didn't have a very good response to his question.

 

Truthfully the reason is I have no constant use of Chinese and we have not taught a Chinese lesson in a while except two last night. I knew my Chinese was worse but I didn't know how bad it was until last night. I truly don't know what to do, I feel like I am not fulfilling my calling but I don't know how to change anything with the situation as it is. If there is any advice you could think of giving me that would be great. :)

 

I hope everyone is having a great week, I know I will because I am on the Lords errand and I know he will bless me as long as I let him. Also this week we have a Zone Conference that will lay out the new goals and expectations for the new year. I am very excited to find out what we will be striving for as a mission. I love you all and good luck with starting the new year!!

 

Elder Fawcett