January 7, 2019

I'm so friggin tired. Edinburgh was nice, I always enjoy being there. MLC was also good, the whole meeting was pretty much about creating a good start in each of our zones for the beginning of this year. At the end of the night we caught a flight to Belfast and then the next morning we got a bus back to Dublin.

So I haven't really had much time to get to know my area yet since we only got back on Thursday. Since Thursday though we've been busy as crap. Soooooo many lessons. Mostly with Brazilian people and other South Americans. It's pretty interesting because most of our teaching pool is only learning English so sometimes it is hard to communicate. However, Valiati speaks Spanish and Portuguese so he usually teaches people.

It gets really awkward for me because I can't understand anyone if they are talking about normal stuff. But if he is teaching a lesson I can tell where he is at in the lesson so I know where and when I should step in. I've also only served in areas on my mission where I've had to get to know and be friends with people older than me and now I'm in a ward with tons of YSA... and we pretty much only hang out with YSA. I'm already getting a little bit better but at first I was really intimidated because they're my age. I also feel like I get a bit nervous because the young mens scene at home was not for me. So I don't really understand Church young people culture. It's a weird culture.

We had to plan for a meeting on Saturday with the other leaders in the zone. I noticed that while planning the meeting and creating goals for an entire zone I didn't even feel stressed or nervous at all. Meanwhile Vali was, he did as well. So right now we are learning a lot from each other. We have another meeting to do tomorrow that we haven't even planned for yet. And tomorrow is the BIG meeting with the whole zone. It will go well though, we have lots of ideas.

I like the 2 hours of church. The class is okay, but I think it has a lot of potential to be great. Only if everyone does there part though; and you may call me faithless, but in the church I kind of find it impossible to see everyone doing their part of the plan unless they are tormented and dragged through what they need to do. Hopefully though it does become great someday though.

We also baptised two people on Sunday :) The first person was an old Irish lady named May. She is really sweet, her daughter converted when she was 16 and its been 36 years since then. A few months ago May started looking into the church because she read a Book of Mormon that was given to her when her daughter left to go on a mission. May felt something that was different when she began to read it and now after being taught she is baptised!!

The other girl that was baptised is from Brazil and her name is Eliane (Elee-ahn-ee). She is really sweet, but doesn't speak much english. What does know is good though. She was stopped by a missionary a couple weeks ago and she was golden from the beginning :)

I will send you pictures when I get to a different place to email today.

Love you :)

Elder Erik Orchard