This week flew by! It was very hard we had loads of rejection. But it's all good.
We taught Manee and I got a haircut at the same time. She had several employees at her shop so we got to teach all of them it was soooo awesome!! Some of them had been taught by missionaries before. I felt like we had our own little Sunday school class haha :)
We got to do some less active stop bys. A lot of them were quite rude and asked to have their names taken off our list. We ate dinner at the McCalls on Wednesday. Oh how I love sister McCall. She is so good to us and always gives us a bag full of food to take home. Her and sister garner took us to a war memorial today in Burton-on-Trent it was lovely and full of poppies! It was huge but forgot to take many pictures. They made us little sack lunches and we had a wonderful morning exploring and wondering about the arboretum :)
We met with terry and he was drinking some McEwans beer as we were teaching the lesson. I've never hated my last name so much. ;) Thursday was chucking down buckets of rain. It was so beautiful!!!! When we were riding the train to rugeley for our dinner appointment we pass by pretty green hills and it felt so surreal. I was going to take pictures but I was just enjoying it haha. We ate with the Tongs which was so fun!!! Neil, their son, made us an amazing dinner! The whole ward makes such good food. Thursday and Friday I ate soooooo flipping much I am gaining pounds like nobody's business. Sister Price and I have been so busy we haven't been able to make it to the store so we keep running out of toilet paper haha. Last week we had to have the Mawles give us some and this week the tongs did. The tongs were like "Can we do anything for you? Is there anything you need??" Sister Price and I looked at each other like "well............" hahahaha.
After the tongs we went to a potentials house named roger. He has 2 little kids and they're so cute!!!! He's the one who was in the window when we knocked and yelled out "I'm in the shower!!" It was so funny because the next time we came he did the exact same thing hahahaha. This time he told us to wait a minute and he came down in a robe to talk to us haha good guy. He was really interested and wanted the lessons.
Friday and Saturday were the best!!!! So the Royal British Legion has asked that the missionaries in our mission help to sell poppies for the poppy appeal!!! The poppy appeal is a way to remember and show respect for the fallen soldiers who fought in the world wars. The money donated goes to rehabs and medicine for soldiers, for the current forces, education, and to help the community. It's the coolest thing I have ever been apart of. People here are SO respectful!!!! Every single person wears a poppy on their coat for weeks! There are very few people without poppies. Even the dogs wear them! I've never seen something that brings so many people together. We sold those poppies in town centre all day. We had great teaching opportunities and met soooo many people I just want to take home with me!!! It was weird having people be so kind to us haha.
One lady we met her name is Sheila. She is the craziest Scottish woman oh my gosh she is so insane I can't even explain. She's 83 and has always been in charge of the poppy appeal in Cannock. Her accent was so strong. She would call us her "mormormormons" her voice is so deep and she was so stylish and would always dance her way through town centre. EVERYONE in Cannock knows her. She would pass by like an 90 year old woman and be like "oh stop sitting around and picking your nose" and the grandma would laugh and be like oh Sheila. She is literally insane. She gave us so much food and kept sneaking money into our bags to buy ourselves lunch. She's so cute. She said she wanted to feed us because I guess she used to feed missionaries in Scotland. She said she loved our religion but couldn't give up smoking.
Another lady we met was a born again Christian and was telling us for like 30 minutes how we were going to go to hell because we weren't born again and kept trying to bible bash us we just like oh my goodness. She gave us so many weird pamphlets too haha. Another dude kept coming up to talk to us over and over. So many people asked us about America and Donald trump. We met the best and the worst of Cannock hahahaha it honestly gave me soooo many parade of homes flashbacks. I kept wanting to say "follow the numbered arrows on the ground and they'll take you through the whole house."
All in all though Sheila was very pleased with us she was shocked at how much money was earned!! Even the Cannock MP / senator came to get a picture with us to publish it or something hahaha it was awesome. We had no idea who she was and then when she walked away this one guy was like "do u know who that is?!?!" We made so many friends doing this. It was so fun. We also saw lots of formers and potentials which was so cool. We saw kelvin. He wanted us to stop by and say hello. We also saw that one lady who totally flogged our appointment last week which was super awkward.
We had Indian food with nick on Saturday. He didn't make it to church again because his dad was in hospital and he had to go... we were so sad. Still seeing him almost every day. He is our number one priority right now.
All the members know I leave everything everywhere hahaha remember how back home I was the worst at forgetting things??? Amelie Mawle told me this week "You're always leaving things everywhere!!!" At church Sister Denton brought gloves I left, Amelie brought a Christmas ornament I left, and the Gilbert's brought a jacket.:) haha I will always be a disaster.
On Friday we met with Oliver it was by far the best lesson we've had with him. Oliver is the best. Earlier in the week we stopped by to have a tour of his garden (he LOVES showing us his garden) it's so cute he gave us so many herbs to put on our lamb that we were eating at the McCalls that night. But any ways we taught him AGAIN about baptism because the Garners and us have really felt like his date needs to be sooner. We prayed and prayed for guidance and the spirit so that we would be able to help him understand that it needed to be sooner than January. He told us he would make a new date!!!!!!! It was the best ever because Oliver is pretty stubborn and knows what he wants and won't change his mind haha. But he's so beyond ready. He is basically already a member.
Sundaaaay Sister Price and I spoke in church. Me still being the same Madeline I was 3 months ago wrote my talk right before church. :) Haha. My topic was living by faith so it was easy to throw something together. Toward the end though I was buckling my knees and got super light headed so that was fun. I quickly threw in a testimony and ended early haha. Immediately after my talk I had to play intermediate hymn and I literally could not see the page because all I could see were spots luckily I had the song memorized. It was so neat because at 11:00 we had a moment of silence for the fallen soldiers because it was Remembrance Sunday. Everyone had their poppies on it was great. :)
This week we had lots of ups and downs. One lady we knocked opened and said "you are not coming in and teaching about your church - not in my own home." and slammed the door. It made me so sad. Especially walking away thinking "There is nothing greater than the gospel of Jesus Christ that you can have in your home." I don't think I've ever had more rejection than this week. All good though.
3 months this week! Woohooo. Feels like I've been gone 3 days. Also feels like I've been gone 3 years. I missed my fam so much this week. But England is home for the next 15. :)
Love you all thank you for everything.
Your favourite British missionary,
Sister McEwan xx
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