Week 74! The seagulls here are insane

So half my funny moments is about seagulls this week. I would apologize but I'm not sorry.

Anyways transfer news came out, and I am leaving the Isle of Man. It's sad but I know that the Lord will put me wherever I'm needed. I'll be in Ashton for my last transfer and I'll be in a trio with sister Songer and sister Ott. I don't really know anything about them except that they're pretty young on the mission and they're both redheads, so we're going to be best friends. 

This last week in Douglas was a lot of walking. Sister bishop and I cleaned up our area book and put a lot of people on the map. Also lots of finding. We had a good lesson with Lee, who's doing really great right now, and the missionaries are teaching the lessons to a members son who wants to be baptized. He's so sweet and he'll do great! 

Sorry I haven't given a spiritual thought in a while. I thought I would do one on your vision. So in the mission, every new missionary starts off with writing their 'vision' for their mission. It's basically who you want be at the end of your mission. This can also apply to life in general. We all want to become better people and be more successful in life, but if you don't have a specific goal to work for, then what direction are you going in? It really helps making a goal and making plans on how you can achieve it. We all need to have the end in sight. It's the same with heavenly fathers plan. The end goal is the celestial kingdom and everything else is just a step to it.

The funny stuff:

So I guess it's seaweed season because the beach is just covered in seaweed right now, and our flat is right along the promenade. It's only bad if you walk along the promenade, but since it's been warm, all the seaweed is rotting, and it smells like the oceans armpit.

So I decided to start a pen collection, and the first one I got was from Lancaster castle, next was the isle of man, and now two cute random pens. I'm actually super attached to my pens now too.

So I finally saw a car that was weirder than the three-wheeled one. It was covered in fake grass. Except for the lights and windows, the whole car was just fake grass. It must have been an advertisement

So we had to go to pound land for toilet paper and I saw SPICY skittles. Two words that should never go together. Anyways of course I got a bag, and the skittles, surprisingly enough, are actually spicy. It's more of an after taste than an actual flavor

When we were in Ramsey, (other side of the island) the wind was so strong it was actually pushing us back and knocking over trash bins. It was raining too and it felt like knives, I swear. That was probably the worst weather day I've had on the mission.

Finding decent popcorn in England/the isle of man is so frustrating. English people like sweetened popcorn. Not caramel, just popcorn with sugar sprinkled on top. It takes so lung just to find one normal salted popcorn, and even longer for butter.

SO SEAGULLS:

We saw two seagulls crash into each other, fall, start fighting, and then both of them stopped so they could scream at the street. Then a car scared them away. It was so funny because just as the fight started to get good, they just couldn't resist the urge to scream

We also saw a seagull swallow a piece of pizza Whole. THE WHOLE PIECE. IN LIKE 2 GULPS. I was scared this seagull was going to die. It looked so uncomfortable. Plus there was another seagull trying to pull the pizza out of the first ones throat.

While the pizza seagull was doing its thing, another seagull took the bag they found the pizza in, tried to fly away, but the bag was too heavy so it dropped it and like 8 other seagulls dive bombed for it. The whole time this was going down, sister bishop and I were basically dying. It was one of the funniest things we got to witness.

I also low key saved a man's lunch. There was this seagull that was very obviously planning to swoop for this man's sandwich, so sister bishop and I walked behind the man to syke out the seagull. It worked and the seagull did a really sharp U-turn mid swoop.

Week 73!!! Haaaaappy Easter!

So this Easter season was aaamazing! The weather in Douglas was also. Amazing. It was sunny mild weather all week! The tourists are all starting to pour in, and there are TT racers prepping. Motorcycles grow in numbers every day (and so does my anxiety) (bikes scare me). Nothing really new to report besides that. Just lots of finding. 

Last week was pretty intense. So sister bishop and I had spent most of the week in England as we had our zone conference and exchanges then. Zone conference was really good! It was all about The Book of Mormon and how we need to use it more in our teaching. After exchanges too, the blys and us had a few hours to kill so we got to see Lancaster castle! It wasn't a posh castle because it's main use was as a prison

The funny stuff:

So if you ever wondered why english people always looked down when they walk (on TV), it's because the roads are made of cobblestone. I've tripped on them so many times and I always end up breaking my shoes in the same place. Always. I've been using the same pair of flats everyday for the last 4 transfers and I've had to glue them together about 6 times on the tip.
The isle of man always does a lot of touristy things but this one was strange. So they hid about 30+ wallaby statues around the island. Idk what connection wallabies have with the isle of man.
My current financial state: sucking on a raw spaghetti noodle bc I don't have any good snacks and I was too lazy to make some.
The three welled car is back!!! So sister bishop and I saw it driving down the promenade. We also found out that it's a type of electric car that has to be ordered 

Week 72! Just the funnies..

When we were walking back to our flat, we heard music and there was a bunch of kids having a dance party in their front lawn. As we walked past they all started flossing. We cheered them on of course

We also passed a Super drunk man. He couldnt walk straight or much at all, but he was still gentleman enough to let us pass and say hi. Then we watched him stumble up the hill. I hope he made it there safely.

So there's another sister Hawkins in the mission and I was joking around being all like "there can only be one" and then sister Niederhouser said that's no problem soon there'll only be one (since I have one transfer left). It was the best moment ever. Perfect timing and savagery

When youre a missionary for long enough, you start to care more about the things that matter, but on the flip side, you stop caring all together about things you used to care about. For example: I used to hate bugs, and would normally make a big deal about it if I find one in the house. Now I just can't be bothered. I woke up feeling pretty trashed and confused because the whole day before we were traveling and now I'm awake earlier than normal and in a flat that is not mine. Then I find this huge bug in my suitcase, but I was just too tired to care, so I picked it up (with my bare hands) and put it in the trash can (idk if I killed it or not). Now that I'm actually awake, looking back on this I realize how horrifying that was.

So I finally met the new sister hawkins and we did the family tree thing and we are 11th cousins removed. We don't share the Hawkins name either but hey we are related!

I'm also related to sister Terry and bishop but not sister sever haha

So I got a letter from my family and my dad put these really wierd stickers in them, and one was this awful Shrek meme of Shrek holding the book of Mormon saying, the scriptures are like onions, they have layers. Anyways I gave it to President mcreynolds just for his reaction, and it did not disappoint. He was all "who prints these!?!"

I love showing pictures of my dogs Jess and Mario. Everyone loves Mario but then they're all like yea Jess is ugly. A few people think she's cute though.

I'm like obsessed with making bread now. I've made about 8 loaves so far this transfer (I have to do something during language study time). My favorite so far has been the Mozzarella basil bread. The apple bread was a complete failure though. It tasted slightly like iodine to me.

We got popcorn and I made 3 bags and burned 2 of them. Idk why or how the other 2 burned bc the first bag came out perfect. Now our flat smalls like burnt popcorn again.

Week 71! General Conference!!

So general conference was definitely the highlight of the week! I'll admit, I was pretty sad that there weren't any huge announcements about missionary work. There had been tons of rumors going around about sisters going out at 18 and elders having 18 month missions and new areas being opened for mission work. I'm really glad that this was a mostly doctrinal conference. I think with all the changes going on, we needed the time to sit back and practice the basics. No matter what temporal rules the church has to follow, the doctrine of Jesus christ will always stay the same. I'll just share my favorite highlight from general conference: elder Hollands talk from Saturday afternoon. I really love how he talked about the importance of showing respect to sacrament meeting. It's more than an obligation, it's a gift given to us through the suffering of Jesus christ in the garden of Gethsemane. We need to treat it like that.

The funny stuff:

So we were walking and I see the white ball of death (that definitely wasn't rain) fall from the air and I had to freeze and check my hair. Luckily nothing hit me but sister bishop got nailed straight in the middle of her chest on her raincoat. She was absolutely horrified and took off her coat and undercoat (idk why. It didn't get hit) until we got back to the flat. The seagulls here are merciless, I have no idea how I haven't gotten pooped on yet.

While we were talking to this man, I was messing with the strap of my bag and I popped the button off and broke my bag. (I fixed it though)

So I had to get vitamins, and it was a 3 for 2 deal, so I got two of the reimbursable ones and the third, a multivitamin, for free. It said 50+ on the package and my dumb butt assumed it meant that there were over 50 pills in the vitamin. What it actually meant was that the vitamins were best for people ages 50+. Guess I'm taking old lady vitamins for the next two months.

So we were in a call with the zone leaders and they had to put us on hold so I was all like "do we get any elevator music" and they made one of the elders do elevator music (with just him, and his singing and beat boxing) for like a whole 5 minutes. It was hilarious

So the word. Lobster in Chinese can also translate to dragon shrimp. And tomato is red western persimmon. And kiwi is monkey peach.

The Chinese word for hamster translates to warehouse rat

My spelling is absolutely rubbish because there are some words that even autocorrect can't figure out for me. Like chihuahua (I spent like 10 minutes trying to figure out how that's spelled)

So I was opening a can of tuna and I sliced my finger so I needed a bandaid and the only ones the flat had were some Rudolf the red nosed reindeer ones so I guess I'm celebrating Christmas early. 

Week 70! Hello Sister Bishop

So this week was pretty funny. After sister Reyser took the boat to Liverpool, I was with the Blys for the majority of the day. I'm pretty sure I saw the whole island that day. Later sister bishop arrived and we get on great. For everyone who knows me, know Im a huge nerd and so is sister bishop apparently. It's been nice having someone to nerd out with. We also had a small miracle this week. Sister bishop had left her wallet on a bus and someone turned it in to the bus station! I love it here. Not much else to talk about for this week. 

For the spiritual thought, I thought I'd talk about the book Jesus the christ. It's by James E Talmage, one of the apostles and in it he talks all about Jesus christ and his premortal, mortal, and current ministry. It's and amazing book and it really helped me understand the new testament more. In our mission, President mcreynolds made an Easter challenge to read chapters 33-37 of Jesus the christ.

The funny stuff:

I was with the blys most of transfer day, and during that, elder bly took about 533 pictures. He counted. (I bet mom could top that)

So sister bishop spent almost all of her monthly money in one day. So we get about 135 pounds a month, and she spent 20 on groceries, about 80 on a monthly bus pass, and another 20 on a weekly (the monthly pass takes a while to come in the first time).