Darlo is in good shape!

Week 6, Transfer 10

WHY AYE MAN

That's a northern expression. It basically means YES in the most northern English way possible. Sister Zurcher and I say it with an almost Scrooge/ crippled elderly person accent. It seems to make it all the more legitimate for some reason. 

MARTIN WAS BAPTISED Y'ALL !

MIRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACLE. 

He was so happy. Although he doesn't show his emotions very much, we know him well enough now to know that he was very VERY happy. He texted us Friday night and said 'Hey it's Martin thank you both for everything you do for me'. We almost cried! It was really sweet of him. His girlfriend Trish was there too - we got her and 2 recent converts to bear their testimonies too. It brought the spirit so strongly and it was really powerful. Sister Zurcher and I also threw together a pretty mint musical item if I do say so myself! It was a few hours before the baptism and we were running around like chickens with our heads cut off. We had a coordination meeting with the Zone Leaders and our ward mission leader and at 3:30pm, I had to do the programs for the baptisms, because the library near our house was shut and has really weird hours, so I was doing that. It was then suggested that we start filling the font then instead of waiting, just in case....and lucky we did, because we soon discovered that we didn't even have the key to the font pump to fill it up! We were like WHAT DUHHHHHH?!?!? The same thing happened to us in Leeds. We were almost recruited onto the crew deck of the Black Pearl again as we were thinking about having to fill up the font with buckets like at Kera's baptism…but luckily, I was locked into doing the program and Sister Zurcher was calling people trying to locate the key we needed, while the Elders started filling it with buckets. We have a new Zone Leader by the way. Elder Baker - word on the street is that he's training to be a Navy Seal, so he's pretty nifty at problem solving. So off he and Elder Leavitt went. Our trusty ZLs! Bless them. A while later we located the key, it was dropped at the chapel. By that time, our ward mission leader’s wife and one of his sons rocked up with a hose, (which) they attached to a sink tap and started filling the font that way. Both sets of us missionaries had tea appointments at 5pm so we all rushed off to them. We had tea at bishop's. It was great. Love that family! Such a good spiritual lot. Then we rushed back to the chapel to see that the font was almost overflowing after they turned the pump on…and we got there just in time for our ward mission leader to arrive from doing something else, to turn it off. 

PHEW.

Relief!

Why did we even expect a normal, smooth baptism anyway? It's not our track record…why start now?? 

The baptism was class. Musical item went well, talks went well, testimonies were great, spirit was strong, Martin was a happy lad..and overall, the spirit in the ward has lifted a bit and everyone seems to be a lot more unified.

That's what baptisms do I guess! I really love this ward. The members are great. Still getting to know them all, but from the way it's looking, THE ZURCH and I will be here until we finish our missions. So we have a sweet 4 months to help this ward to transform into a beautiful butterfly! 

The baptism was the highlight. Not much we can do to top that in the way of NEWS.

After church yesterday we went to Catterick Garrison, the big army barracks. We went by Virginia and her family but they weren't in, so we did some knocking. First door we knocked on, this HUGE, tanned, bald guy comes out...friendly as anything! We had a good chat. He ran a regiment I think. He was in charge of the soldiers who basically go into Afghan and other places and were the first to go into big operations/missions etc. Moral of the story: this guy was crazy. Not mentally, but because he was in CHARGE of all the soldiers in a thingy...  I'll do some more finding in Catterick and get up to scratch with my army terminology!  Anyway, we shared the restoration with him. Don't think he was interested in the way of finding 'the truth' but he knew A LOT about a lot of religions. We gave him an Articles of Faith card and he was very happy about that. We're making friends in high places here!

Darlo is in good shape, we're visiting all the outlying areas and things, having a right good old time!

Love you all

PS I was sick TWO days last week, vomited me guts up for 2 days as well. Feeling good now though. Makes you appreciate feeling HEALTHY when you're dying of the plague. Sorry I haven't sent photos in a while too. I completely forgot my SD card thingy to put into the computer .but next week, I'll have it!

Sister Zurcher and I are off to the beach today with a member from Leeds! Sarah Boycott and Hamilton (baby hammy!!!!) are coming up and we're going to Whitby. It's a famous beach…apparently Dracula was born there?? How true that is, I'm not really sure...but I'll bring some garlic just in case.

Love youuuuu!!!! KEEP SHARING THE GOSPEL! IT'S THE BEST THING WE HAVE IN THIS WORLD!!!!!!

Sister Kuhn xoxoxoo