The Simoan Sandwich

This is the most disgusting thing ever.
This must be Elder Jensen.



so these sandwiches are legendary missionary food called simoans. you get a pot of boiling water and a pack of top ramen noodles, unbroken. boil noodles for 17 seconds, NO MORE, NO LESS. take em out, unfold it, stick ham and cheese (or really anything you want) inside the noodle flap, close it. break an egg in a bowl, put half of the ramen seasoning in the egg and mix. then get a hot frying pan and dump in the egg, then put the noodle thingy on top of the egg in the frying pan and skootch all of the egg close in to the noodles. then repeat the process on the other side. then stick it in between two pieces of bread with whatever else you want on it, and you have, the simoan!!! :D

This is one dish we probably won't ask him to cook for us. Boys cook the weirdest stuff!




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Not in Romford Anymore

HEYYY!!!!!!! I'm not in Romford anymore!!!!!!! I'm BURY ST EDMUNDS!!!!!!!!! AND IT'S A CAR AREA!!!!!!!! AND THERE'S AMERICANS EVERYWHERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHHHAaaat???!?!?!?!? xDDDDDDDDD God has smiled upon me this transfer. I had skippy peanut butter this week. and i made pancakes from krusteaze mix, with american syrup. and pop tarts. and we get fed every single night. american food. (for the most part). but man!!!!! it's totally crazy! one of two areas in the whole mission with americans, and i'm in one! with a car! and!! More craziness! My companion is Elder Jensen! Who's been out for 12 weeks... I'm follow-up training! WHOA!!!!!

There are 2 airbases nearby. It's about an hour and a half from London.

sooooo, our flat here is on the second floor. and it's one of those doors where when you walk out, the door shuts behind you and you need the key to get in. so it was my third day here, we had just gone to the trunk or treat for our ward (I KNOW RIGHT??? SO COOL!) and we were walking toward our front door. I check my pocket for the keys and i realize, oh darn. i don't have the keys. Hey elder, do you the keys? no. do you? no.... NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WE'RE LOCKED OUT!!!!!!!!!!!! oh my days, so it's like 9:30 and we can't get in our flat, so we try calling our land lord, but the office is closed and we can't get a hold of her. so we try picking the lock, which neither of us have ever done before, and eventually give up. You wanna sleep in the car?... :(( anything else we can do? uhhh... we can call brother schmidt! uh, ok! yeah, him! why him? so elder jensen calls brother schmidt and asks, hey! so i know you have a bunch of these really cool skill sets (brother schmidt basically works with the special forces) and uh, you wouldn't have the means to pick a lock, would you? he answers, i'll see what i can do! so we're like, ok, this should be cool! he drives over to our flat, looks at the door, gets out a swiss army knife, we blink, and the door is open!!!!! YES! what a guy! exciting huh?

This area seems much more like the England we all think of (well except for the airbases).


A lovely town center. Britain's first internally illuminated street sign, the Pillar of Salt, built in 1935.






In the centre of Bury St Edmunds lie the remains of an abbey, surrounded by the Abbey Gardens, a park.

It looks like a beautiful place. Harry likes it and hopes he gets to stay awhile. I hope he gets to sight see and learns how to TAKE PICTURES.

1/4 Anniversary

Harry has been out for 6 months. That's a quarter of his mission.

From his last letter:
and can you BELIEVE that i've been out for six months??? does it seem like forever to you? cuz it seems like yesterday to me.

Yes! It seems like forever.

Pictures of Harry:

What a cute missionary! 

This may be Elder Strong. I don't know cuz Harry doesn't tell me anything.

I LOVE the sign in the background.

Don't know if the time stamps are correct. He's not very good with his camera.

Harry and the Whiteboard

We discovered this week that there is a HUGE difference between the letters Harry writes to each of us.

From my letter:
:3 you should make me a shirt that says, "I'm a Mormon, are you?"

Oh my days, we have the most amazing investigators ever! we got this referral from the family history center saying that some guy came in and he was coming back on saturday and we should come see him. see we're like, uhhh. ok! sure! so we go on saturday and wait for this guy to show up. and then we just start talking and chatting and being friends, it was great! i know absolutely nothing about family history, so he got to show me a bit more about what it was and stuff. quite neat! he's from brazil and his family on his dad's side or something is from portugal. do family history mom! i don't get to, so you've got to do it instead. send me some stories about our family or something ;3 anyway, then after a while of just talking he asked who we were, then we just told him we were missionaries, we introduced the book of mormon in a geneological kinda way, and got an appointment at his house! we went and taught him and his wife, THEY'RE AWESOME!

From Kelly's letter:
i thoroughly enjoyed all of conference :) especially when all the missionaries in my zone are sitting right next to me when the prophet says, yeah! 18 year olds and 19 year olds. go for it! and all the members are just kinda like oh hey yeah that's cool. but all the missionaries are just flipping their lids, NO WAY! OH THAT'S SO COOL! it was fun :) but yeah!

there are no knitters in my ward!!!!!!!! NOT ONE!!!! we have an old lady who does lace work which is cool, but no knitting! PLEASE! MAKE ME A KNITTED TIE!!! One that's like, square at the bottom. they're all the rage over here ;D I would love you forever.

i've been kinda playing the piano as of late and trying to learn and stuff and whatever. it has made me realize that mom was right, i shoulda stuck with piano, cuz now i regret it. so sad! But i do admit, it's really fun to just doodle around on the piano, allow it mate ;)

hey here's maybe a story. so the greenie in our area invited us over to their flat one night for "pizza sandwiches." this guy is like 6' 2", and totally huge. he's from finland. Elder Koponen, just an all-around awesome guy. but anyway, he puts 2 lbs of minced beef in a frying pan and makes this massive patty, makes 2 pizzas, puts the giant patty inbetween the two pizzas and gives a quarter each of this massive huge thing. it was crazy unhealthy, but a good bonding experience xD anyway,

From Sabrina's letter:
I WANT A PICTURE OF YOU IN A MUSTACHE! k?

I stood in the middle of town center with a whiteboard that asked if people knew what the book of Mormon was. 'twas kinda weird!!!! never before have I broken the rule "don't talk to strangers" so much.



Show me a new math problem you've learned!

Kelly gets the longest letters.
Mine are always positive, filled with "I'm ok's" and "don't worry's".
Sabrina seems to get the fun stuff, although it is seldom that she shares.

I'm really glad he writes different things to different people so when (and if) they share I get to hear more about what he's doing.

A Week Without Mail

At first I was like...

OK, so it's only Wednesday. I know he sometimes doesn't have time on P-day to email. But where was he? What's going on? Is he OK? Is the internet down in all of London? 

Then I was like...

My world had crashed by Friday. I was never going to hear from him again. I missed him. I wanted to cry. I kept thinking about what a cute little boy he was.  

 

Then I remembered what a GOOD boy he has always been and that he is a loving son. He is a great missionary and he has work to do.

And pretty soon it was Sunday again. so I wrote to him again. And on Monday morning I got mail:

I'M SO SORRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm sorry i missed a week xD I'M NOT DEAD I PROMISE. I just didn't have a chance to email :/// but that's ok! this week was really really good tho :D

We had some really good times and found a couple new people to teach and even got some of our investigators to conference! :D woohoo!! :D but man, we're teaching these Polish Gypsy people, they're so great!

...anyway, I love you mom :) WITH ALL MY HEART AND SOUL!!!!!!

So then I was...

Elder Affleck

Elder Affleck was Harry's companion for only 6 weeks, but they became really good friends.

The pitfalls of leaning back in your chair.

So while Harry is getting a new companion and 2 more missionaries for his area, Elder Affleck has gone to Luten to companion with an autistic elder. ":o it's cuz the Lord trusts him so much."

To remember each other they bought matching jackets. (sorry, no picture)

Need a Missionary Moment?

The Lingo and the Suit

Harry was so thrilled to not have to learn a foreign language for his mission, but we noticed right a way that he was speaking a different English than before he left.

He talks in £ not $ (I couldn't even find the symbol on my laptop)

we live in a place called essex filled with "chavs," look it up xD bruv, init?

our flat is so posh! (a flat is an apartment)

its like 23 degrees not 80 mom. that's ridiculous ;3 lol, it's measured in celsi over here :)

hope you have a lovely rest of the week!!

Everything's cushy mate ;D that means, everything is good :)

so do you mean chips like fries or chips like crisps?... i speak english now

reading out loud is brilliant,

i've been having a grand ole time!

:D don't you worry bout a thing :) bruv. just keep everything nice n cushty. xD i so wish you were here to observe essex and all of its... essexness.

everything is good :) and my trousers fit totally fine, no need to worry. and why on earth did we spend so much on my trousers back home?? you can get proper posh trousers for 10 or 15 quid over here. quid means pounds btw. local lingo for you ;p and yes, i quite like my plaid shirt! Thank you :DDD i've had such a lovely time as of late.

>:p why? Do they just feel like wasting all of our petrol ;p that's dumb.

you should totally read Alma 34, it's choc' full of jolly good stuff. lol, no one actually says that here. well, here in Essex anyway. maybe elsewhere? whatever, Queen's English.

oh goodness p-day. oh i could go on and on xD p-day was beautiful!! we went to the lakeside mall with (almost) the whole zone! :D it's like, a proper mall, which doesn't happen often over here. anyway, i had TACO BELL!!!!! it's so not even as near as good over here, but it was quite nice :D and i had cinnabon as well... bleh ;p it was super good tho :) but yeah! :D and! most importantly!!! I got a proper english suit!!! xDD YES! :D super posh, way nicer than the ones i have xD and suits don't have to be plain black btw, in any way. it's a quite slim-fit suit and it's a nice grey :) super posh. i love it :) fits like magic.

We bought Harry the two suits required, 7 shirts, like 5 extra pairs of pants, the socks, the ties-everything the booklet about his mission said he should have.We dragged him out shopping. He has never liked to shop.

HE BOUGHT HIS OWN SUIT.
  
I'm glad he is finding his own style even if it's a little flashy for me.