Finally, An Email :)

Hellooooo everyone!

 

Sorry I've been such a massive failure at writing proper emails. . . it has gotten especially hard since our mission president has told us to write out president letters online now, instead of hand written. Buuuttttt, I am doing great! Brid is as good as ever. Now that Sorensen is home, and Sister Cruz is here, I'm noticing more and more that Brid is just my home. Haha, I love it here. I love the people, I love the town (except for the heaps and heaps of dog poo that is everywhere. . .but that is just a small thing), and I love being a missionary here!

 

But Sister Sorensen is gone. :( I love her so much and we had SOOO much fun together. She was my longest companion (nearly 4 months) and honestly just had a blast. BUt she is home and I'm sure she is having a fantastic time being with her family.  Our last days together were good. BUt they took her a day earlier then we thought, which was sad. :/ But all is well.

 

Sister Cruz is wonderful. She is from Grand Canaria in Spain and, obviously speaks Spanish! Her English is good, and she is very eager to make it even better! She is a wonderful missionary and I am excited to get to serve with her at this time.

 

Well, what else to say? We are continuing to work with the same people and still continuing to search with everything we have to find even more peopel to teach. I love being a missionary and getting to teach God's children here in England. England will be apart of me forever.

 

Well, nothing too exciting is happening. EXCEPT! We are having our mission Christmas party tomorrow! Which I am very excited about! Everyone from the whole mission will be getting together at the American base in Harrogate and going bowling, playing games and then we are going to be fed a delicious meal and we are going to watch a movie. It's gonna be EPICCCC!!!

 

So, yes. My life is wonderful. :D

 

But I am sorry to hear about Grandpa Gardner. :( I'm glad the funeral went well, and I just know that he is happy and well in the Spirit World. He will be helping the work of the Lord to be moved forward beyond the veil. 

 

I love you all!! 

 

<3,

Sister Stout

A Long Overdue Update

Because Ali and I email back and forth most p-day's she doesn't usually have time to write out an email. But for those interested I thought I'd give some details about what she's up to.

Her current companion is Sister Sorenson and they have been in Bridlington since she went back there a few transfers ago. Sorenson is going home on Wednesday (in the middle of the transfer... all the missionaries going home this transfer are going home this week to be back in time for Christmas). Ali will be getting a newer sister named Sister Cruz who's from Spain. This will be Ali's first foreign comp. The sister is struggling with the English language. Ali will be staying in Bridlington for at least the next 3 weeks, until the end of the transfer. Once this transfer is over she will only have one more left and will return home on Valentines Day! I still haven't received her itinerary. Ali served in Bridlington as her second area, then Don Valley (where she spoke Slovakian) and back to Bridlington and if she stays to the end of mission will have served there for 9 months.

They are teaching a few people right now. One is a lady that she met while we were emailing each other. She's Bulgarian and because Ali spoke Slovakian for 6 months they were able to understand each other a little - I guess the languages are similar. She has a baptism date set for Dec. 29. The others they are teaching aren't progressing too much but Ali has a lot of hope for them and they walk the streets everyday looking for new people.

Ali's coming to grips with the fact that her mission is coming to an end. She mentioned today that she'd be lying if she said she wasn't excited about coming home but she also would like to stay in England as a missionary forever. She loves it so much. It's a bittersweet thing, as it is for all missionaries preparing to come home.

After telling her about the passing of her great-grandfather this week she was sad and sends her love to all the family. She loves grandpa very much. We gave her grandma's contact information and she'll be writing her soon. She's sad that she'll miss the funeral and seeing all the family but is grateful for the Plan of Salvation and that we're all going to be together again someday.

Sisters, You're Called to Serve!

Life in the mission is grand! I am staying in Bridlington with Sister Sorensen!! We are excited about it!

 

I am SOOOOO HAPPY that girls can go on missions when they are 19!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was pretty much the best news of my whole LIFE!!! EVERY girl should serve a mission, and this has made that a lot more possible. When you are on a mission, you are literally on a mini life. You learn things a lot faster then you would in normal life. I would encourage every young woman to pray, with real intent, and ask if serving a mission would benefit them and others. Remember, if you have a desire to serve God, you are CALLED to the work. Just because we're girls doesn't mean that the Lord expects less from us then the boys. It doesn't say that if you are a man and you have a desire then go, but if you're a girl then if you let it slide then it's okay. You are CALLED. Sisters can do the work in a completely different way then Elders can. We are BOTH desperately needed in the field. Search, ponder, and pray!!

 

I love you all, have a good week! <3

 

Sister Ali Stout 

ps - Mom, I love you so much. :)

Becoming More Christlike

This week has been GREAT!! We have an epic investigator named Stephen and he passed his interview!!! So he will be getting baptized on Friday! I love Brid, it's the smallest place in the world, but it just keeps on giving! We honestly find the BEST and the MOST prepared investigators EVERRRRRRR here! I love missionary work and I love seeing people working so hard to change and repent so they can be more like Jesus Christ.

I've been working on becoming more Christlike as well. I've finally overcome the hurdle that I've been working on most of my life, and now I have to get out of the mindset of fixing that and start working on something else. And the something else I decided that I need to work on is charity. Blessed, blessed charity. Sometimes I fight my leaders too much. I am prideful. I'm not a perfect missionary and I do my best, but I have overcome other problems and now charity is just staring me in the face. I know I'll never perfect it, but I can do all within my power to improve. I need to learn how to SHOW my love more. I'm not the best at showing affection. That is something I'm working on this week. :)

I love you all my wonderful family!!!! I miss you and I hope life is doing welllllll.

Buhbye!!

<3,

Sister Stout

Sister Sorensen and I!! Isn't she adorable?

Awesome Week!

This last week was so much fun! We had the INCREDIBLE opportunity to go to Sisters Specialized Training! I got to go last year as well, I loved it then, but this time was even better! It was a different experience to go when you've been out for a while. While I was there I met Sister Burningham, and she was precious! Sisters Training was all about how we need to reach our potential and I just LOVE working on reaching my potential and seeing others reaching theirs! <3 One part of the training was when each sister was asked to stand and share what was the most important lesson they have learned on their mission. I have honestly learned too many lessons to even BEGIN so I was just pondering as we all went around the room. A couple sisters before me, I recieved my revelation. I knew what I had learned that was the most important. And that was that I learned how to love myself. That was something that I struggled with a lot before my mission, but now I do. And I didn't even realize that I had overcome that and that I didn't even think about it anymore until Sisters Training. :D Learning lessons is the BEST.

The work in Bridlington is going great and we have some wonderful investigators. We don't have too many, but the ones that we do have are stars!! They are progressing so well!!

I wasn't able to email yesterday because . . . the whole zone came to Brid! And Sister Sorensen and I had to go buy things for the barbeque on the beach. Then after we had our bbq, we went to the chapel and played a little game called ZOMBIE APOCALYPE, which was sooo much fun. I prefered being a zombie to a survivor. I am really bad at shooting nerf guns, and I am much better at just sulking around in dark corners. :)

Well, I love you all and I hope that you are happy and doing all you can to move the Lord's work forward in your own way. :)

Talk to you next week!!

<3,

Sister Stout

Back to Walking and Finding - But It's All Good

Hello my lovelies!!

 

This week has been good! We did a lot of finding, but no bother. :) We did have a really good miracle that happened last night. We have been struggling to find new investigators and we have been looking and searching and being diligent and so on and so forth. But we were still struggling. But Heavenly Father gave us a tender mercy. Sister Sorensen was feeling sick during church so afterwards we were just in the flat resting and a former investigator rings and we set up an appointment with him at the chapel at 7:00 pm. We go there and no one was around so we rang him and he said that he wasn't coming. We were not very happy since it was kind of hard to get out there and Sorensen wasn't feeling great. We needed to invite people to be baptized (which we do everyday, whether in a lesson or on the street) still for the day so we started talking to people and we met this guy who wanted to se ethe chapel and we had a lesson with him AND we scheduled him for baptism!! I love miracles!! I love being a missionary, we get to see the best kind of miracles and we see them everyday!

I love you all, have a good week!

 

<3,

Sister Ali Stout

ps - We also found a slug in our flat, it was the nastiest thing I have ever seen in my whole life! It was just so slimy and SICK. Ugggghhhhhh

I Am Back in Brid!

Haha, it is so crazy to go back to one of your old areas! It doesn't even feel like I left. I've picked up right where I left off. :) Brid is pretty much still the same place. Except that Sister Sorensen is here and she is SO epic. We are having a ton of fun together! And back when I was here, P-Days were always kind of a joke, but this P-Day is gonna be really good. The ZL's and our DL and another set of elders and another set of sisters are coming to Brid! Which was unheard of in previous times. Brid is evolving!!!

 

Bridlington is doing so well, they have seen a lot of baptisms this year, which is so fantastic! I know that I have been sent here for a reason, and I am so excited to find out what that reason is. It's gonna be an adventure.

We found a guy named Steve my first day back and we scheduled him for baptism! He is doing so well already! We haven't taught the Word of Wisdom yet (we only mentioned that the gospel can help him stop smoking), and he has already determined to not smoke anymore and has created his own plan for stopping! And he came to church, where he really felt the spirit, he was just GLOWING! And he said that he is coming next week, but he was going to have a suit. Haha, I love the changes that the gospel can bring in just a manner of days. :D

 

Well, we have a big day of fun ahead of us, so I'm gonna have to get going. I love you all, I love the gospel, and I know that Jesus Christ is the Saviour and Redeemer!

 

Talk to you next week!

 

<3,

Sister Ali Stout