Sister McEwan in England: Good Afternoon from Cannock, England!!!

Disclaimer: This keyboard is in British-English so it corrects anything I write. I haven't already turned English on ya (ie: favourite, saviour, colour, offence, tyre, aluminium).

Good afternoon from Cannock, England!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wow wow wow. My world has been turned upside down. No offence family but it may have been harder to leave the MTC than it was to leave home. I bawled like a baby. Birmingham Mission left a day earlier than everyone too so it was hard not having a P-day to pack and say goodbye. Most my friends are going to London and London South so it was super hard knowing I wouldn't see them again. But it's good I can write them because they're out of my area. They are my family. It all feels like a dream. Luckily Elder Ey is still in my zone so that's a blessing to know someone and I'll see him next week at Zone Conference. But it was truthfully the best 3 weeks of my life. Thinking about it makes me sad so BYE MTC. :'( I can't think about it or I'll cry legit. My heart hurts just writing this. :( Except I do have to share that we went on a Church History tour to some BEAUTIFUL PLACE. I forgot the name of it though but everyone said it looked like Downtown Abbey. I'll try to figure it out. I wish I had a picture. We also saw President Hinckley's mission housing in Preston which was so cool. Look it up. I'd send you guys pictures but all my photos on my camera up until this point were deleted the night before I left the MTC :):):):) Yay!!!!!!!! I was so sad. Seriously devastated. Me and Elder O'Hare and Sister Smyrnova made some awesome vlogs at the River Ribble so that's devastating and I lost all of Izzy's videos and pictures of the dogs :(. Trying to be positive about it though. I got some great pictures the night before I left but I have an iPad now so I'm gonna try to figure out how to send them. But you may not see them for 17 months - that's right!!!! It's been been a month!! (On Thursday) The fastest most INCREDIBLE month of my life. Go on a mission.

So... CANNOCK wow it is beautiful here! It's directly above Birmingham and borders the Manchester mission. I'll probably be here for a lot of my mission because it's my Greenie area. For at least 6 months I bet. There is so much that needs to be done here it's insane. THE FIELD IS SOOOO WHITE AND SO READY TO HARVEST. My trainer is Sister Price from West Valley and she is awesome! I don't really have problems getting along with people haha so it's good. She loves cats and Star Wars. She has knee problems so I won't be biking the next few transfers. I think I'll be here with her for 12 to 18 weeks but you never know. I love her so much. She takes such good care of me!!!! Such a sweetie. I have an iPad so I can draft this letter throughout the whole week, that's why it's so long!

It took 3 hours to get to the mission home. President Leppard (Mum you were right, it is pronounced Lepppppaaaard (all British and weird). He is the sweetest man. So wise. We checked in and got our assignments. It was so sad seeing my district babies all gone and I don't even know where they are but I hope they're okay. Sister Smyrnova is in Nottingham it's so weird not being with her she was like my security blanket. The STL's (Sister Training Leaders) dropped us off at the flat and I wanted to get to work but my comp wanted to get to know each other which was fine too. No new sisters went to Wales this transfer. I have a feeling I'll stay in Cannock for a while but I love it here because we are very close to the city centre which is great for street contacting and we're about 10 mins from the train which will come in handy and 10 minutes from the Tesco which I had to buy makeup from because I left it all at the MTC haha typical. But if u want to know what Tesco is, it's Walmart but not nearly as nice, so ya it's disgusting. This makeup should not even be called makeup it is nasty but President Preston emailed me and said he would send it over with the next group. I've already found at least 10 spiders in my flat. I hate spiders. There are also spiders covering the baptismal font. That won't stop us from baptisms though cause we showed up to this area with 2 scheduled for October!!!! Oliver and Kelvyn! :)

Wednesday:
It is madness here. We are the only missionaries in Cannock (pronounced "can-nick") and Rugeley. Our first dinner appointment was in Rugeley on Tuesday with the sweetest woman on the planet named Sister McCall. She is a sweet grandma who made us cottage pie and some chocolate cheesecake. It was very yummy. Look up cottage pie it's so typical English. We ate it all the time in the MTC. I've consumed so many potatoes in the last month it's slightly ridiculous, I hate them. Every time I have chicken and potatoes I laugh because I hated it at home. It was so yummy tho, I think it was because I was starving and we had been walking all day. We took the train to her house and it felt like Harry Potter. We ate with her and her oldest son who is like 30 and it was a blast talking to them. The houses here are so small and old and then the cars are all BMW's it's hilarious and so pretty. We did some street contacting before and found our chapel which is soooo posh as the English would say. It's weird though because they don't have pues it's just set up chairs and there is 2 stories and the chapel is downstairs. Sister McCall said there are only about 50 people who show (on a good day) and there is only one ward that attends. And sooooooo many less actives. So we have A LOT OF WORK TO DO.

Also we are "Pink Washing." Which means we are both brand new to the area and the people before us were elders. Our flat is nice but I have yet to buy sheets so I have been using sweaters for blankets and pillow cases. They don't believe in dryers here so we have to hang dry our clothing but nothing dries because it's so humid. Love it though. Street contacting was cool we only had 1 guy named will who was interested and we're going to ring him tomorrow. We had many drug encounters one guy was literally casually rolling a joint when we were talking to him. Our flat smells like weed. While we were waiting for the train there was a boy, I kid you not, Maxwell's age or younger who was smoking pot. So much swearing and people yelling at us out their car windows. We have so much to do here wow. We are the only missionaries here too, which is madness. I HAVE SO MUCH TO SAY!!!!!! My cute little investigator David from Manchester emailed me saying he's super interested and has been reading some chapters in Mosiah I told him about and he said praying makes him so happy!! He's in Manchester though so I will have to give him to the Chorley missionaries :( but I will still email him :) such a cutie, I'm so proud.

I got your package mommy!!!!!!! I was so happy and the clothes are so cute!!!!! I love the socks!! I've already worn it all haha. Thank you so much. The candy was gone immediately. I have been buying so much candy here. They have so many good gummy candies like gumdrops and Haribo which is my favourite. There's also these things called Quashies. I LOVE THEM! Google them they're so good. And the Cadbury and Galaxy Chocolate is to die for. We go to Asda before we tract and buy candy in the morning hehe. The first couple days from the MTC have been so hard because we were fed so well and so frequently and now I'm just starving all day every day! Also don't know how to use pounds. But I love it and love the cereal here. It's a lot more foreign then I thought it would be. All the brands and stores are completely diff.

Everyone here says "You alright??" or "You okay???" as their greeting instead of "How are you?" and every time they do I'm so taken back like "Yes, chill, I am fine." And they think you're weird if you say "How are you?" so that's been a trial. So many phrases I don't understand yet and everything is worded so differently. Like instead of what is her name they say, "What is she called?" hahaha or they say reckon like "I reckon that she's in the loo." and it haunts me. I've been reading the Book of Mormon too much. Every time I see a store that says "We laminate here" I think it says lamanite #helaman5 #darkclouds. Wow I love it here so much. Also I turned into an optimist when I was set apart I feel like. Nothing bothers me. Really does feel like I'm learning a foreign language though. Sometimes when a member is driving us back to our flat I just think "I am in a foreign country with some random people living with a girl I've never met with no contact with my family." It's crazy. But I loveeeee it.

Please tell the Schulties I LOVE ELDER WALKER!!!!!!!!! (Their cousin)!! We did exchanges last week so I spent an entire day in his district. He is such a hard worker and seriously the nicest kid ever. Such a stud and an incredible district leader. He was for sure one of my faves at the MTC. My comp was Sister Lannan for the day and it was so fun I love her. She's from Australia and would leave chocolate on my pillow every night. Such a sweetheart. It was fun being in that district for the day but I did miss my children in my district. They said it was too quiet without me hahaha. But I learned a ton and it was such a blessing getting to teach with sister Lannan because she can speak English. I prayed every day I would have an English speaking trainer because A TON of people in this mission don't speak English. I'm her first American companion and she's been here for 9 months! Miss my Ukrainian though. Bless her soul.

Thursday:
What a day. We had to take a train to the mission home for a district meeting. We left at 8:30 and got there at 11:30 because we got lost so many times and had to take a connecting train and had no idea what we were doing. And funny story hahahahaha we were getting on a train from Birmingham new street to Sutton Coldfield and Sister Price got on the train and I didn't. The doors shut and I went into sheer panic mode and just stood there in shock because she had the phone and it was my second day hahahaha! But then some kind man helped me out and opened the door somehow #foreignerprobs. Finally, we got there.

Our district is super fun and crazy. Elder Wall from Mapleton is the DL then we have Elder Decker from the Netherlands and Elder Louis from Madagascar and Elder Gosturani from Albania. They're super fun. It was cool being back at the mission home so fast. And I got letters!!! SISTER WARD: your letter made me soooo happy and I taped it onto my wall. Thank you sooooo much!!!!!! We got to talk to President and Sister Leppard for a little while and I met their dog hah. I told them you loved them for having a dog mom haha. After we traveled back with the elders and went to a dinner appointment with the Dentons who live by the chapel. I love them they are the sweetest older couple. It was shocking though going into their house because they are major hoarders so there was stuff EVERYWHERE! I have never seen anything like it in my entire life. They were amazing, we had such a good conversation on the gospel and they're both converts from missionaries in Plymouth. The whole time I couldn't stop smiling. We are eating with them again next week. We have DA's every night. Sister Denton was proud of me for it being my second day in the field. We have dinner appointments every day this week it's amazinnnnng I look forward to them every day. Members take such good care of the missionaries. Especially because they haven't had sisters for a while.

Friday:
We made lots of appointments and had a dinner apt again. Their names are the Garners and they're an older couple. They live in Rugeley so we had to take the train. They LOVE RED. Their entire house was red and they were both wearing red I kid you not the entire house was red everything was red it's like that one TLC episode where the woman loves pink. It was amazing. (They also wore red to church.)

The members here are so amazing. Also lunch means breakfast here and dinner means lunch and tea time is dinner (but u don't drink tea) and pudding means dessert. Also the Garner's accents today were so crazy I could not understand what they were saying sometimes I just have to smile and
laugh hahaha. I have no idea what's going on hahahaha. :)

Saturday:
Today was a finding day. No success. Except one. We went to B&M for our daily dose of candy haha and I kept having this feeling I needed to approach one of the employees. I kinda shook it off and kept walking through the store but we kept passing him so I told my comp. we made the plan to go over and ask him what his favourite candy was because we were new to England and needed help because we didn't know what was good or not. He was super quiet. Finally after chatting for a while we got into gospel. He doesn't believe in God so we gave him the prayer challenge. He was totally into it and said he would do it. He asked us if he could pray for the day to go by faster haha and we told him to try. I told him I'd do that at Jones Paint and Glass all the time ;);). He said we could come back to the store on Sunday to check up on him. Saturday night we ate with the Denton-Irwins. They have 3 lovely kids and they were hilarious!!! Such great members here. That night we talked to more people but no one was interested. It's so defeating especially when someone has a hard life and need the plan of salvation and you're like COME ON I CAN HELP YOU!!!!!! But it's all about planting seeds and representing Christ. We had great convos with great people who Heavenly Father loves and adores. I finally bought sheets, too.

Sunday:
CHURCH finally we got to meet the members of the Cannock ward!!!!! Oh how lovely. The congregation was tiny but so full of the spirit. They were playing music from a CD when people were walking in which was so strange so I asked if I could play some prelude music before church and now I'm the ward pianist..... So I've got lots of hymns I need to learn. Also got to speak for a few minutes with absolutely no notice. Hahahaha it's a good thing I had 3 talks written from the MTC. Every Sunday President Preston gave us a topic and we all had to write a talk then right before sacrament he would announce 6 lucky speakers. I never was chosen but it ended up being a blessing having stuff to say for when I did randomly get called up. It was crazy because everyone in the ward has like 3 callings each because there aren't enough people. So the same lady who taught Sunday school taught Relief Society hahahhahahhaa. Utah is so blessed it's insane. Everyone was so welcoming to us.

It's been really difficult pink washing but we are getting the hang of Cannock even though we get lost 80,000 times a day and almost hit by a car 9,000,000 times a day. People legit drive through puddles to try to get us wet hahahhahahhaa it's like the movies. I don't even care though. It's good memories. Nothing irritates me here it's so weird. I'm always so happy. After church we ate dinner at the Mawles. IT WAS AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!! Seriously so good! We had kebabs. They are amazing. Sister Mawel is so kind and like a mom to us here. Her kids are darling and so well behaved.

I could have stayed there all day we felt so at home!!!! But we had to leave and go find Luke at B&M before his shift at work was over. We got there and he went home early his coworker said. I was sooooo sad. But we are going to find him Tuesday because we know he works then. After 2 weeks of no contact this has been a blessed p-day. :) Tonight we eat with the bishop's family and are visiting some less-actives.

This week has taught me about the extra protection Heavenly Father gives his missionaries. This really is the Lord's work. We have to have faith that it will work out exactly how he wants it to. I've learned a lot about patience and a lot about love. The amount of growth I've had the last month is something I wouldn't trade for the world. My mission has already been the most sacred experience of my entire life and I can't wait to see what the next 17 months hold. There's so much more I could say.

I love Cannock, I love my comp, I love the people, I love my ward, I love my family, I love the missionaries, I love the gospel, I love the work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cheers to England!!!!!!!

xx Sister McEwan