Nov 20, 2011

Hey

Sounds pretty awesome. I think at the end of these two years I might need a vacation... we will have to do a Mexico trip like that when I get back. Who was it that caught the 30 pounder? Daran actually emailed me last week, I think he was missing you and I didn't realize he was going to be in Mexico with you guys, that is really great though. The biking sounds sweet, but I can't believe you haven't gone surfing yet.

We are so excited that they are getting married on the 17th! And also really cool, they are getting baptized the day after! If I get transfered right before all of this (the transfer date is Dec. 8) I will just be devastated. However, I get along really well with the bishop, and there are quite a few problems in the ward at the moment and he doesn't want to bring anyone new in. So last night he called Pres. Shamo, and also had the Stake Pres. call Pres. Shamo, and he told me he is pretty sure I will be here for at least one more transfer. So I'm really happy about that. I want to spend Christmas here so bad, I have such good friends here and having it here would probably be the next best thing to a normal Christmas with you guys. I would hate to move to a new area and then two weeks later have Christmas with total strangers.

Oh, the Christmas package you guys sent arrived. However, they keep bringing it by at 1130, and because we are never home at that time, I am never here to sign for it. The tax on it was like 20.63 or something. Next year we will have to remember to send it to the mission office.

I am no longer upset about the fact I am in an English speaking mission. It would have been so tough to learn a language. I struggle enough as it is teaching people in English, if I was trying to do so in another language I would be a total mess. I think I have realized this is exactly the place I need to be in, and I honestly love being here in Helston.

We will get the chat thing going one of these weeks. I think I'll always be on about 130 your time.

We have the best p-day ever planned today! We are going up to Plymouth (Helston has about 10,000 people in it, and Plymouth has a couple million) with Ken and Toni in a couple hours, and meeting Elder White and Simmons there (it is about a 1.5 hour drive). Ken is driving us up in his beamer to save us from using our cars miles. We are going to an indoor ice rink and going ice skating! I am really glad I am going to get a chance to ice skate this winter after all, although everyone else says they don't really even know how to skate. If only we could play some hockey... but after skating we are doing some shopping for matching onesies for christmas and then we are going out to eat at a really good resturant called Nandos. It is going to be an awesome day!

Enjoy your time in Mexico,

Love Elder Steed

You didn't let me know about Sean or anything like that I asked about last week... he has just stopped emailing me and I was wondering what his plans were.

Nov 20, 2011

Good Morning,

I hope you guys have fun today with the whole gang! Tell everyone I miss em!

I actually just bought a new hoody last week, but I wouldn't mind some thermal underwear. And a scarf and/or a sweater would really be nice. But I know you just sent the Christmas package, and I can wait till it gets really cold if you want to wait a couple of months to send anything else. Or I could just buy stuff on my card.

Okay, that homework assignment you are doing sounds awesome. It sounds like you picked four amazing books, and I think you could really write an amazing paper based on that. I'm really impressed.

I miss scone fridays. I'm gonna miss about 100 of them in a row, so we will have to be making up for lost time when I get back and have scones everyday. I even miss the drop in center. I didn't use to like doing service projects like that very much... but now I love it.

Have you heard anything about Mike Cooper? How is he doing? What happened with him?

The Steed Christmas' are always so much fun. I am really sad I am going to miss it, but I will at least get a taste of the big skating party today. I don't know if you can read the email I sent to dad, but we are going ice skating today. Actually a really crazy thing happened yesterday. I was eating dinner at a members house and we had one of her friends, and investigator, over as well. I mentioned where in Canada I was from, and she asked me if I knew any Bauldries. I said ya, and she asked if I knew a mark Bauldrie. I said no, but I did know a Ryan and a Nathan. So it turns out, Nathans dad, Mark, served here in Penzance in like 1978. Sis Maddern, or Mo as we call her, was really good friends with him. Mo had a picture from Nathan and Whitneys wedding! I thought it was so cool, such a small world.

I actually havent even got your Christmas package yet. They keep trying to deliver it but keep missing me. It will be like 20 quid. I'm excited to set up a tree! That is too bad about Riley... especially the saturday night hockey. I think it is pretty sweet that he is still keeping that tradition alive, but lame that he isn't making everyone pay. I did sometimes feel guilty about always bugging people who never payed for the money, but I think you just have to do it. I miss hockey... no one here knows anything about it.

So how come Lolo (lauren) is coming back? And I just realized, you never seem to answer any of the questions I ask in my emails. Like last week I asked why you were worried about me when I first left, and also I asked how Tyler Skinner is doing because you said Janae is worried about him. I think I asked a few more things as well...

I had two pieces of toast with nutella for breakfast. Thats what I have everyday now.

It is really going to be so fun at the end of my mission when you guys come pick me up and we can go tour around all the places I've been in. Especially Helston. You will love to meet all these people.

This has been a really good week for us. A crazy week even. The work here in Helston is lighting on fire. In my four months, we haven't had much success outside of Ken and Toni. But the last two weeks, we have picked up 5 new investigators and we have like maybe 3 or 4 more that will probably be investigators this week. We had 6 people at church yesterday! We are getting lots of chances to serve people, things just seem to be looking up right now. Early in the week, we were asked by our High Priest group leader (Eric, one of my really good friends, he is the one who bought me my cornish tie) to go help a less active lady who is REALLY struggling. So we helped her clean her garage, and we are going back this week. She is still amazingly vibrant, and happy and full of life, and really mobile and witty for a 90 year old. I really did just enjoy chatting with her afterwards, we were able to have some good laughs even in this rough time in her life. Other than that, everything has been really good. We managed to teach a refferal we got from the bishop, and it went amazing! We taught him about the restoration and BoM, and he was really receptive to it and open to finding out the truth for himself. He even offered a kneeling prayer with us at the end. We are going back wednesday to show him the joseph smith movie. His wife is currently investigating the j-dubs (jehovas witnesses) but we will see what we can do about that. We also are starting this week to teach a grand-daughter of a less active lady. I think I might have mentioned her before, but she is only 17 and kind of a rebellious kid, and had a crush on a previous missionary. So I don't really know her motives yet, but she claims she wants to take the discussions and be baptized. She told me the only reason she didn't when she last took the discussions is because she had a boyfriend who was opposed to it all. But now that is over. So we will see.

On saturday we had like an hour to kill before some teaching appointments, so we just went and knocked a road me and Simmons had felt good about like a month ago. It was incredible! It seemed like everyone was really receptive and just nice, we gave out a bunch of Boms and pamphlets, and we booked four return appointments for this week, and all 4 of them were families! I don't know if that even sounds amazing to you, but I have never had anywhere close to that much sucess in knocking doors before.

Then at church yesterday, a lady just walked in. She was a tall, young african lady, and because one of our less actives is a tall young african lady, I figured it was probably just her and so I just introduced myself and didn't really talk with her when she first came in. Then as I am up on the stage after Elder's quorum, the relief society president comes flying out of the hallway and grabs me and tells me I need to get my butt over to the front doors. Turns out this african lady has never been to our church before. Her friend who usually goes to the Redruth ward was going to meet her here for church, but for whatever reason her friend never came. So this lady just ended up at our church all by herself. So we grabbed a couple members and went and taught her about the restoration in gospel principles. Actually we also had Chris in there, our 10 year investigator, and he was even helping to teach the restoration story, which was really weird. This lady, whose name is Friskani, was really cool. She normally goes to a born again church in Truro. And, as it turns out, the same church Ken and Toni used to go to! So when Ken and Toni rolled in for sacrament meeting, they were all like What the heck? They apparently knew each other from that church, and started talking. Friskani has a 4 year uni degree in buisness administration, but can't seem to get ajob with that so she just does some part time modelling jobs. She is really smart, and knows the bible really well. But she loved the idea of the restoration, and the priesthood, and stayed for all three hours. The ward really made her feel welcome. It was just crazy. She said she will come back to our church, and we are going to teach her again on Wednesday. She has some serious marriage problems though... some really weird stuff, but has two young kids.

Then after church and eating with Mo, we went and stopped by a refferal we got. We got the refferal from the less active grandma of the 17 year old I mentioned earlier. Apparently this lady who cuts her hair every week has shown a lot of interest in the church. I guess they just talk about it as she cuts her hair. And the hairdresser, whose name is Paige, is going to New Zealand in a month to live with her sister, who is lds, and whose husband is in the bishopric there, and wants to learn more about the church before she goes. So we knock on the door of the house, and this big, tough looking bald guy opens it. He just eyes us down looking angry for an awkward amount of time, then just smiles and says; Come in! I was really taken aback, we hadn't even spoken to him. So we went in and introduced ourselves. Turns out Paige, the daughter, is 18 and lives with her parents. Her mom used to be a member, but got exed when she moved in with her non-member husband like 30 years ago before they were married. So they were really cool and nice, and knew a lot about the church. Although Paige knew like literally nothing. She didn't even know who Moses was. But we had such a good time with them, we just seemed to hit it off with them right away and were having a good conversation and laughs. They invited us back next sunday, we shared a really great verse from the BoM with them, and they aren't opposed in anyway to the church. We are going to try to teach Paige about the church, and hopefully dunk her before she leaves. But there really isn't much time to.. so we will see what happens.

It has been a crazy week. Sorry I wrote so much.

Thanks for everything, enjoy this precious time without Joel,

Love Elder Steed

Nov 13, 2011

Ya we can skype on Christmas day. I also am going to see if we can skype when Riley gets his mission call. How is that going by the way?

I also just wanted to mention that Toni made us Mom's parmesan chicken this week. Me and Simmons did an exchange, and went to teach Ken and Toni and have dinner with them, but we didn't tell them it would be simmons coming. They were really suprised and excited and we had an awesome night. Ken had a really tough night at work the night before, he got spat on and a couple of guys jumped him and he is just really sick of his job.

I also just remembered that in the Christmas spirit, and as a service project, we are going to be putting up Christmas lights for an older lady in the ward. I'm really excited about that, she is really cool.

Oh, and we had a really good meeting in Reading this week. The area 70, a general authority, came to Reading on thursday so we did the 7 hour drive down to hear him speak. Actually, just a side note, on the way down one of the sisters we were travelling got really sick and I had the chance to give her a blessing. It still scares me half to death to be asked to give blessings, but that was my second one now and I am always amazed to see the power of priesthood blessings. But Elder Wright was amazing. He was a great speaker, and I gained a lot from this one. We had another q and a session with him, like we did with Bednar, and everyone was asking really lame questions that I could have answered. So I got sick of it, and near the end I asked one about the role of the spirit in goal setting and he spent like 20 minutes answering it and really just answered all my questions about it. So I really enjoyed being able to have some of my concerns about that get resolved. I was in the front row and he was just like standing beside me talking to me. It was pretty cool.

I should be on the same time next week, ifyou get a chance to be up to chat.

Love Elder Steed

On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 9:49 AM, Tanner Steed <tanner.steed@myldsmail.net> wrote:

I might as well respond to your other email while I wait. As you mentioned seabiscuit, I just though about a movie I get to watch soon. We are having a ward fireside where we will be watching the movie called 17 miracles. Its about the handcart companies crossing the plains. I'm so excited to watch a proper movie! Also, we might be allowed to watch Its a wonderful life on Christmas day. I've never seen it, but everyone says it is really good.

You should totally knit me a toque for christams. Although no one here or even any of my companions have heard the word toque. They all call them beanies.

Actually mom didn't tell me about Riley... that is really too bad. He is doing design at SAIT? That kind of sounds lame to be honest. What is Hayden and Dan doing? And why did he decide to come back? I guess he must not be enjoying it that much... It's probably hard to fit into a YSA ward like that when you are pre-mission.

That is really cool to hear about what you are doing with Sean. Mom said you took him to a flames game as well, has he talked with you at all about plans for a mission? And I'm sure him and Jordan will love doing floor hockey. Haha you need to get one of thost big girls? When I get back I better still have my spot on the team though! I'm gonna come home and you are going to be better friends with sean than I am.

Teaching gospel principles is pretty good usually. I'm actually kind of bad, I just go in a wing it every week. But we get really good members to come in the class with us and they help a lot.

I'll let you know about the VAT for the Christmas package. Also, I might need to get some dry cleaning done this week, which costs maybe 15 pounds. Elder Oscarson I think would enjoy anything really, even if it is small just so that he has something nice to open on Christmas. I am learning a lot from him. He really likes old stuff, like any sort of old church films or music or talks or any MOTAB stuff he just loves.

Just thinking about what you said about that Cooper bloke, I think that is a realization I am coming to as well. The first few weeks or even months of my mission I was really uptight about everything, and just stiff and even a little bit awkward. I just wasn't being myself. I think it also makes it tough when you are with your trainer who has a really dominant personality (as do I...). But as I've gone on, I've tried to find the balance between being serious and still having fun. I think I am doing a lot better with that now. I have a lot of fun with the members and investigators, but I know when the time is to be serious as well. I think I just realized a missionary doesn't have to be stiff all the time, and that if you don't have some fun on your mission you won't enjoy it and you will go crazy. So things are starting to get easier and easier, I am enjoying serving here pretty much every day now. And even though time still seems to be passing really slowly, I don't really mind.

Have fun in Mexico! I actually still have the scar on my lip from that impromptu surgery,

Love Elder Steed

Nov 13, 2011

Sounds like a good weekend. I miss those rolls Grandma phillips makes. She actually sent me a letter this week in the mail. If you talk to her, tell her I really appreciated the letter and the 20 quid! Tell her I used it to buy some much needed new clothing. They actually also do remembrance day here, but we didn't go to a service or anything for it. I really wanted to though.

Ethnic novels and literature? That sounds like a ridiculous assignement. The only novel that popped into my head is Island of the blue dolphins. Oh, and 'Keeper of the isis (or maybe iris??) light' or something like that. Both of those probably fight into that category.

That sounds like the perfect calling for you. In our last ward, I remember all the yw loved you, and so I'm sure it will be the same here. You're a great teacher, and you are great with the girls. The added bonus of keeping an eye on Alyssa is always nice as well.
I loved Christmas as Uncle Mikes! Im sad I'll miss that, and I don't think we are going to have any decorations or even a tree to set up. Maybe I'll see if I can find someone who will let me borrow some, because we need those things for it to be proper christmas. I did just buy the Michael Buble Christmas album, and Oscarson bought some other oldies Christmas collection, so I am pretty excited to start listening to that music. Ya I didn't know about the 50 pound VAT or anything like that until today when I got on my emails. Hopefully they don't charge me too much.

I'm really excited to SKype all you guys, and to see Noahs suprise! You will have to make sure to get me all the right numbers and stuff.

Ya a lot of missionaries who leave with girlfriends get dear john'ed. Actually, pretty much all of them do. And it just destroys some of them. They go out of commission for like weeks or months. And even if they keep working, their heart just isn't in it for a while. So yes, it may have not been my own wisdom, but it is good that no girls would date me before my mission.

What is Aunt Janae worried about Tyler for?

And what is all this about you being worried about me the first month? Worried about what?

Thats awesome to hear about Jackson and his wrestling. Keep me posted on how that is going. He needs to find that fire. Tell him to think of Iginla and how good Iggy plays when he gets mad. I think Jack could be really good at wrestling. A missionary here who I am pretty good friends with won his state univesity wrestling championship just before he left on his mission. He said he would go to school 2 hours early and stay one hour late every day to train.

It was a great week for miracles, but the thing with Kathy may not pan out. I don't want to say too much about it though, because there is still hope things will work out.

Remember that I love you guys as well,

I'm excited to hear about your missionary expereinces you are going to have soon...

Love Elder Steed

Nov 6, 2011

Hello my mom,

It has been a good week. It seemed to just fly by, whereas most weeks seem to pass by really slowly. Thanks for sending the package! I hope you didn't spend too much on it... I don't know if I will be able to resist the temptation! I am going to try not to even read the label on the side of the box, so I have a good suprise on Christmas. My companion actually said he isn't really expecting anything.

Elder Oscarson is great. He is a lot different than Elder Simmons though. We get along really well, and we both like to work hard so things are really good so far. He loves movies, especially the old classics. So we talk a lot about his favorite movies and music. Back home we wouldn't have had like anything in common, but over here we are really good friends. I think that is like what dad was saying, about having a common interest. Elder Simmons is coming back to do an exchange on Tuesday though! We are going to go teach Ken and Toni, and suprise them!

That sounds like a great trip in Montana. It was really cool to hear about your weekend then about Dad and the boy's weekend, sounds like you both had a lot of fun. And actually it does usually snow like once a year here, and when it does the whole country just shuts down. Buses stop running, no one drives their cars, schools close, people here just have no idea how to drive on snowy/icy roads. They would all think you are crazy driving through a mountain pass with the road just covered in snow and ice. Actually, even I think it is a little bit crazy.

You bought yourself a camera like mine for Christmas, and you are already using it? Pretty early Christmas present...

Of course I am using my camera! I have taken like over 300 photos. The problem is that I don't have a cord for it to connect it to the computer, so to send photos I have to take my memory card out and put it in Elder Oscarsons camera and then use his cord. But I'll make sure to do that and send some photos today.

I'm glad school is still going good. Keep up the hard work! Stats is actually pretty tough.. it starts out really easy but the end is tricky. At least my stats class was.
I actually love the Old Testament. If I am really tired one morning during personal study, I will sometimes go to the Old Testament for a treat. I love just reading all the crazy stories in there, especially about David and Saul and all around that time.

Even if Riley doesn't figure out stuyding before his mission, he will on his mission for sure. What does he do with all his free time? Hopefully he doesn't just game all the time. He didn't feel like filling out the paper work of a police check? It is really easy, and a lifeguard is a WAY better job than a grocery store. Hopefully he figures things out soon enough. Is he starting on his papers any time soon?

I love the church in Eureka. And I really do love the ward here as well... but it is way different than anything I have ever known before. They call this church a worldwide church, they say it is the same everywhere you go, but that might not apply to Cornwall. Everyone is this ward is just a character, and there is always some crazy things going on in the ward. The ward is actually going through some really tough times. I met with the Bishop this week to discuss some things going on in the ward, and I realized one of the main reasons I think that we are here is to help strengthen this ward. Bishop has been talking to Pres. Shamo and said he will try to make sure we are here into the new year.

Ken and Toni getting baptized will be such a boost to this ward. The ward is helping them so much with their marriage. They are going over for dinner, or just to hang out, with members of the ward at least once a week. Some of their best friends are in the ward now. We have set a tentative date of Dec. 3 for their wedding, and then Dec. 4 for their baptism. We keep having to push it back, but we hope this will be the one. There is just so much you don't anticipate when you plan for a wedding, and it seems something always is coming up that causes delays. We are trying to just stay out of it as much as we can, and let them do their wedding when and how they want to. There is nothing I want more than to push them towards baptism, but I realized it isn't really my place to be trying to tell them how to do their wedding.

We also have a new lady with a baptism date, but I'll mention that more in Dad's email.
I love you guys, thanks for everything,

Elder Steed

Nov 6, 2011

Hey,

We ended up doing a bunch of street contacting last night and were walking around town for 2 hours, between potential investigators houses and along the high street and stuff. I was exhausted after just that, but I've started to exercise more in the mornings now.
Haha you forgot it was fast sunday? Sounds like quite the Sunday adventure. We fasted yesterday, and broke the fast with the Joliffes. The Joliffes and the Morris' are like my best friends here. We had a huge sunday dinner, and maybe the best dinner I have had here. I had thirds it was so good. Brett Joliffe is an RM and comes on teaches with us all the time. He actually is helping Ken and Toni a lot financially with their wedding, and I promised I would buy their family chinese food (to show how grateful i am for all his help). So that will be on the VISA if thats alright? Oh, and another really cool thing is both Ken and Toni fasted this week.

I'm so glad Jackson is doing so well. That kid is going to be ripped when I get back if he keeps up that lifestyle. Good for him, I need to follow his example. And Noah is a whiz. I love getting his emails, I am amazed he can type and spell so well. Those SDS's were brutal. Hopefully doing the AP english will count towards a university class if she does it in grade 12. I'm sure Alyssa will make the bball team. She just needs to start talking to Zelez and let him know she is a Steed. I think he really liked me and Riley.
We had a pretty crazy week this week.

Me and Brett Joliffe and Paul Morris did a little bit of an initiation thing for Oscarson this week. We had an Elder's quorum presidency meeting, and Paul offered the opening prayer and in the middle started talking in Irish instead of English. Brett told him he was talking in tounges again, and I said it sounded like English to me. We told Oscarson it happens quite a bit, and he was just so confused. Then we started singing primary songs and doing all the actions becasue we said it helps us relax after a hard day of work. He was going along with it, but is just a really guillible guy I think.

We also got to go eat at our Landlords house this week. We have a great realationship with him, and because his wife just had surgery on her wrist we went over there an hour before dinner to help them prepare dinner. Oscarson peeled a bunch of apples and I cooked the whole meal. It was a lot of fun, it was this really nice fish and egg rice dish.

We had a few miracles this week... do you remember me talking about Chris Thomas? He is the guy who has been investigating the church for 10 years and the only reason he won't get baptized is that he can't quit smoking. Although Elder Oscarson is all fired up, and is convinced we are going to be able to help him quit smoking and baptize him this transfer. I had the same faith when I first got to this area. It is kind of sad that I have given up on ever baptizing him. Hopefully Oscarsons faith will be enough to carry us. But anyways, the miracle is that we went to teach him on wednesday and he brought along this guy named Luke. Luke was baptized a year ago, but then had some family opposition and stopped coming to church. He didn't tell anyone, or give anyone his number or address, so he was just completely lost. But it turns out Chris is friends with him, and Christ wants to get him active in the church again. So he invited him over when we went and we were able to get him number and address, and teach him and invite him back to church. It was the first contact he had with the church in almost a year. Chris was literally the only link that he had. We are meeting with him again next week. It was amazing to see Chris, an investigator, doing missionary work. His problem is he already sees himself as a member of the church. And he pretty much is, we just need to dunk him. I just wish more members would be as active in doing missionary work as he is.

The big miracle of the week though is that we have another person who has accepted a baptismal date! This is a pretty crazy story... About a month ago when it was me and Simmons, we were cleaning the flat. I found this old folded up scrap piece of paper, and opened it up and there were like 6 or 7 names on it. I was about to throw it away, but 2 of the names, which had a phone number and the word 'seeker' beside them, stuck out to me so I wrote them down in my daily planner. About 5 days ago, we were doing some finding and I was leafing through my planner and saw one of the peoples names, Kathy. I felt like we should call her, so Oscarson called her and she didn't really sound happy or interested but she said we could come over on saturday if we wanted to. So we did. She let us in, she was a really nice lady, and we started talking about her. Turns out she met Elder Tanner over a year ago on a bus. He talked with her, and she gave him his number but Elder Tanner was never able to go see her because they didn't have a car here back then and she lives in this small village by Penzance that is really tough to get to without a car. She told us she has a drinking problem, and that her whole life is just a mess right now. She said the last week she had been praying everyday that Jesus would help her, that he would be able to show her a way to make a huge change in her life and get her life back on track. And she said that as soon as we called she knew we were the answer to that prayer. At this point we were just blown away. We told her about how we ended up finding her number, and started to teach her about the gospel of Jesus Christ (faith, repentance, baptism, holy ghost, endure to the end). We told her how through baptism we recieve a remission of sins, and that we get a clean slate. She told us immediatly she knew what we were saying was true, and that she wanted to be baptized, that this was the big change she had been praying for. We extended the date of Dec. 17, and she said she will be baptized then! It was such a miracle. We talked to our ward mission leader, and he said he will give her a lift to church next week. We have been trying to hard to find new people to teach and more baptism dates, and the Lord provided a way!

I just wanted to share that with you guys, Thanks for all your prayers and support,

Love Elder Steed

Oct 30, 2011

Hey,

I must not have had time to read it, I don't think I even noticed it actually. Unless it was the one where you said you were on call but you would write back later in the week.

I talked a lot about Oscarson in my email to mom. He is a really good guy. We will never get into a fight, he is just too peaceful and laid back. He fits in well with the ward and with the investigators. He did some martial arts, and so did Ken, so they have some common ground. It just isn't the same with Elder Simmons gone. It is weird. I don't know if I mentioned this eariler, but I think I told you how Ken has been struggling with keeping the sabbath day holy because he has MMA training on sundays. Turns out last sunday he tore his meniscus while doing this so he is no longer going to be doing training on sundays. I obviously feel horrible that he hurt his knee, but I can't help but wonder if this happened to try to nudge him a little bit in the right direction.

I really hope I am here for Christmas! The next transfer day is Dec. 8, and I would hate to move like 2 weeks before Christmas. You would have to try to meet a bunch of new people, and the work would be going really slow, and I just think I would really enjoy Christmas a lot more here. But obviously I'll be where I need to be.

It is really cool for me to hear about your work as a ward missionary. We have to teach gospel principles every week, to be honest it isn't something I love doing. I'm sure you will do great at it. And I'm sure you will love going on splits with the Elders if you ever get the chance. Let me know how all that keeps going.

Okay, so I heard you sold the Jetta!? I am very sad about that... who did you sell it to? Why?

I think all together the stuff I bought was about 160 pounds. 100 pounds for the satnav, 10 for the case, and 50 for the razor. I hope thats alright.

Elder Oscarson can't drive. He had his liscence back home, but never did much driving. He can't drive standard either. I am going to try to talk to President to authorize him to start taking driving lessons though. I don't mind driving, but I really don't like driving all the time. He is really scared/hesitant to start though. Especially down here in Cornwall where the roads are super narrow. He has like 0 desire to learn how to drive. I think there are about 60-70 areas in the mission, and about 20 of them have cars. And about 3 are bike areas. The rest are either walk areas or bus areas. I am really glad we have a car area. But we have been doing a new thing where we just park the car in whatever town we are working in and walk everywhere. It allows us to speak to way more people.

Other than Lands End, I haven't been to many other historical areas. We were planning on going to a cool castle today with the Redruth Elders, but we changed our plans are we are going on this old tin mine tour somewhere by the coast. It is supposed to be pretty cool.

I think the appartment would be easier for a christmas package. The address is

155 Pendeen Park

Helston, Cornwall

TR13 0SL

I guess I should mention briefly what we have been up to this week. Yesterday we had stake conference up in Plymouth. It was really good, the stake president challenged the whole stake to read the whole BoM in the next 6 months. And President Shamo spoke as well. It was a great meeting, but sadly none of our investigators could make the 2 hour trip up there. Then last night, we had nothing to do so we just went knocking. We did this for like 3 hours, and it was the most rain I have ever seen in my life. It was just pouring, i had an umbrella and a raincoat but my slacks and shoes and socks just got soaked through. It was pretty miserable, although one guy named Rob invited us in, I think because he felt bad we were out in the freezing rain, and we got to chat with him for a while. He asked us if we wanted some tea or coffee to warm up, and we told him we don't drink that, and from there it turned into a good gospel discussion. He says he won't be converted, but he invited us back in a week to see him so we will see what we can do.
We also got to do a lot of service this week. We have been volunteering with a disaster relief charity organization called Shelterbox. We packed over 200 boxes of tents, blankets and other supplies to be sent over to Turkey to help the people there. I think there was like an earthquake or a flood or something. We had like 25 ward members there with us, and one investigator, and it was a lot of fun. I don't know why I never liked doing service back home, I love doing it here.

Ken and Toni are getting closer and closer. They are pretty much a part of the ward now. They went over to the Morris' last night, along with Jeff and Laura Bray, another young family in the ward, and they had dinner and watched a session of general conference and stuff. It is really cool to see how they don't really need us anymore. They have friends, and testimonies, and once you have those 2 things I think the rest just takes care of itself.

Thanks for writing, I can't wait for Christmas when I'm able to call you guys!

Love Elder Steed

Oct 30, 2011

Hey,

Thanks for emailing Toni. I think she loves getting emails from you. And also from Elder Simmons' mom. She loved seeing those photos. She showed me them as well, I loved the one where I was playing hockey. I think I am really going to miss doing that this christmas. Don't worry, we aren't spending too much time there. We teach them about three times a week, and almost always have a member present. But part of the thing with baptismal dates is you have to make daily contact, so we will call them everyday or stop by if we are in Falmouth just to see how they are doing. To be fair, sometimes our teaches do go over and hour, especially if the member we bring and Ken start just chatting about stuff (Ken has a lot of really good friends in the ward now) and we don't want to be rude. But we try to keep things reasonable time. We both know that our main focus right now is finding, and that we need to find new people to teach. But they are going to get their marriage papers in this week! We have some members working with them to find out all the details, but we are pretty sure now that they will be able to do Nov. 20. I really don't want to push the date back again.

Just thinking about what you wrote last email, I am sorry if I was confusing. I was just in Newton Abbot for the day. And turns out Elder Oscarson is just too nice to play any pranks on. He doesn't have really that side to him. He is from a small farming town in Utah, pretty shy and maybe a little bit sheltered. He is really trying to go out of his comfort zone and talk to everyone and be friendly with everyone he sees, so he is doing his best. He has only been out 5 months, so we are both quite new. It is really hard to do everything with Elder Simmons gone! Because he doesn't know the area or the people, all of a sudden I am the one who has to be making the phone calls and creating the lesson plans and deciding what people we will stop by and all this stuff. Luckily he is the district leader, so I don't have to deal with those responsibilies as well. Elder Oscarson is the best guy ever though. He is really humble, and the most grateful person I know. He is literally looking for any possible chance to express gratitude or to praise something you do. It is really nice actually. We are pretty opposite personality, but we are both pretty laid back so we are getting along really well so far. I am working on trying to help him become more assertive and decisive, and he is helping me on becoming more loving and humble. So its a good companionship. But a lot different than it was with me and Simmons.

I'm glad you are fitting in well with the ward. Don't give up on your degree! I don't think getting that degree is ever something you will regret, but if you back out now I bet it will be something you regret for a long time. Kind of the same as a mission... I may have specific regrets of things I did or things that happened on my mission, but I don't think I will ever regret the choice I made to serve a mission. But if I didn't go, I'm sure I would have regretted it my whole life.

I got a letter from Grandma and Grandpa, they sounded like they were doing pretty good. I hope they are not too lonely. Its good that you are spending some time with them. I was really grateful for the chance i had to spend that weekend with them and Ryan in June before I left doing their roof.
I hope Grandma Phillips is alright. That whole facial nerve thing she has going on is just a bad situation... if it is any consolation, the health care system here is way worse. Even longer waiting times, worse care, run down hospitals. I am starting to believe the socialist mentality is not the way to go at all, I think private buisness' is definitly the better choice. Like the government here pays a ton of money to anyone who doesn't have a job, who is a single parent, or a bunch of other things. And people just come to rely on this support. I know people who haven't had a job for like a decade because they can live comfortably on the money the government sends them. And there are people who will get pregnant outside of marriage just because they know the government will pay them a bunch of child support money if they do. I really don't like it, but whatever.

I bet Aunt Joan's party was a blast! I saw that pic of you guys all dressed up... thanks for sending all those pictures by the way. I love seeing photos of what is going on. But no, Halloween really isn't that big here. Actually a few weeks ago in a ward council meeting, we were brainstorming possible ward activites we could do and I suggested a ward Halloween party. One of the older members of the ward just got really upset and told me how he things the idea of Halloween is like evil and we should not support that at all. I wasn't too bothered, I was just like whatever man, but I guess the bishop thought I was going to be really offeneded by that, so he has helped plan like a 'secret' halloween party to try to make sure my feelings weren't hurt. We have Ken and Toni, and a bunch of the younger members of the ward coming, and the bishop, but we tried to make sure the older members of the ward didn't find out about it. It is really weird to tell you the truth. But it should be a lot of fun. I think I am going to dress up as Elder Oscarson.
Thanks for that inspirational message.

Just as a final note, I thought I would send you a Christmas wishlist. I do not want, or expect, you to get all these things for me, but it is just a list of a bunch of stuff i have thought of

2 new white shirts, one short sleeve on long sleeve, both wrinkle free

A nice leather belt (I wrecked mine trying to kill a fly on the ceiling)

Some more reactine extra strength

An iPod (any kind, I have found out that even iPod touches are allowed in this mission. A lot of missionaries have them, they just have to keep the wireless internet off)

A chocolate orange!

Joseph and the Amazing technicolor dreamcoat soundtrack (with Donny OSmond)

Some stick deodorant (they only have spray here... I like old spice or the dove man)

Thats pretty much all I can think of. I promise not to open it before Dec. 25. Thanks so much!

Love Elder Steed

Oct 26, 2011

Hey, I have just a couple minutes today to email. I'm in Newton Abbot right now, we got the moves calls yesterday. Simmons is leaving. I was devastated when I found out. We had our fair share of fights and disagreements, but overall we got along really well and I loved serving with him. I just can't imagine what it is going to be like with someone new. The good news is though that he is just going to Plymouth, which is like 2 hours away. He is the new zone leader for this area, so I will still be seeing him a lot and whatever. And he will be able to come back for Ken and Toni's baptism and marriage! They both have strong testimonies. They fit in perfectly with the ward. We had a really emotional night last night with them as Elder Simmons said his goodbyes. They are just like family.
My new companion's name is Elder Oscarson. He is one transfer older than me, so he has been out like 5 months I think. He is the new district leader. Everyone else in the district is staying the same. It's pretty crazy, the two Elders in St. Austell have served together for 6 months already and they have another month and a half and maybe more after that. I think if I ever serve with the same person for 7 and a half months I would just go crazy. They are just about ready to kill each other I think, but the President said he had a really strong impression that they both needed to stay. They are both good missionaries and trying to make the best of it. In Redruth and St. Austell, the other areas in this district, the work is going really slow. They have struggling wards and no investigators. They just have to go finding all day. Things aren't that great overall in Cornwall right now, but here in Helston we have some hope, mostly because of Ken and Toni and the amazing ward we have here. Everyone says my new companion is like a really quiet, humble guy. I don't know how that is going to work out in this district and in this ward, everyone is pretty loud and opinionated. Me and the Elder's quorum president Paul Morris and his counsellor Brett Joliffe are going to try and think of some initiation thing we can do to him. I'm sure he will be a great guy though. Everyone has said he is a really good missionary.
I gotta wrap this up, but just wanted you to know about the moves. I'm doing great, thanks for all the prayers and emails.
Oh, and I'm just going to buy a sat nav right now, and a razor. Things here are really expensive... like something that would cost 100 dollars back home costs like 80-90 pounds here. So I apologize in advance for the VISA charge. I'll try not to use it much after this.
Love Elder Steed

Oct 23, 2011

I have to admit, I never did enjoy Sunday's all that much. But now, they are like my favourite day. I love going to church, and teaching gospel principles and just interacting with all the great ward members. I'm on like a first name basis with everyone in the ward (they don't call me Tanner though...) and just feel at home in this ward. The new weekend I have to look forward to is the Sunday/Monday weekend, church then p-day. Things are way different out here.

Thats good you are getting to know more people in the ward, I'm sure you will fit in there in no time. Especially with your guy's new callings. Actually I forgot to ask dad how is new calling as ward missionary is going. Has he done anything with that yet?

I was really interested to hear how the dinner went with the Elders this week. I'm glad it went well. Hopefully you can keep getting to know them. How is Riley doing? Keeping his grades up?

I'm sure you will do great with your talk. We actually both talked again this week in church, they let us know like Thursday morning so we had to scramble to prepare. We both mostly just winged it. We each were just asked to speak about one of the Saviours parables, so I talked about the Sower. It went alright, a little bit disjointed though.

I thought you guys never stopped for hitchhikers... that is kind of a crazy story though.

Ya Toni showed me the email like an hour ago when we were at their place. Thanks so much for writing her back and sharing your testimony with her. They are such a great family. Actually it was really funny on Sunday, Jessica came up and wanted to give me and Elder Simmons a hug before she left church, so she did but then quickly kissed me on the cheek and then ran away all embarrassed. Its an English thing I guess. Actually another funny story about her, we were at their house earlier this week, and Ken had brought out these like 4 samurai swords he had upstairs for us to look at. They were pretty cool, and we had them out of the sheaths and stuff. It was Jessicas 4th bday recently as well, so she still had some balloons lying around the house. Ken tossed one of the balloons up in the air and I sliced it with the Samurai sword and popped it. Jessica just burst out into tears and was crying for like the next ten minutes. I felt so bad. And then when we were there next, Elder Simmons was making her laugh a lot, I forget what he was doing, but then all of a sudden she just like stopped and got all serious faced, and said 'I pee myself' and then started crying and ran to the bathroom. She is so funny.

Otherwise, It has been a good and bad week. I'll just get the bad out of the way. Josh and Stephanie texted us and told us with the pregnancy and everything else, they are just too busy and don't want to have the discussions anymore. It was pretty gutting. We hope in a few months we can see them again though. And then on Friday we stopped by two of our investigators in Falmouth, both of whom we were really hopeful about, but both of them pretty much dropped us. Phil said he wanted to read the whole new testament, then the whole BoM, and that we should call him in 2 months. And then Sheena told us that she spoke with a church of Englad vicar and he told her that she doesn't need to have a specific religion, just as long as she has a belief and lives a good life. So she said she was no longer interested in joining our church, whereas like 2 weeks ago she said she would join as soon as she knew the BoM was true. And I had a really rough day earlier in the week... but it is kind of a funny story. We had a dinner appointment at 6 with a family in the ward and a service project at 3 with a member. Turns out that the member who we were helping in the garden thought she was supposed to feed us as well... so we ate a huge meal with her at 5. She figured after all our hard work we needed a huge meal, so she made us each 2 hamburgers, we split an entire pizza, and we had a bunch of salad. And desert. Then we travelled directly to the next dinner appointment, where we were a bit late so we sat down to eat immediatly. And I was stuffed going into this. She put down a bowl of vegetable soup in front of us, and I'm like 'Yes! I can do this.' So i barely get the soup down, and I was really excited that I did it. But then she comes back out with a heaping plate full of shepards pie and potatoes and carrots. Like a massive amount of food. I was so sick. I was like a zombie, I couldn't speak or think about anything other than getting the food into my stomach. Then she brought out this huge dish of fruit salad which I had to get down. I was a mess. I immediately asked to go to the bathroom, where for the first time on my mission I just destroyed someone's bathroom. I won't even say how many times I had to go to the bathroom in the next 48 hours. And then as we were sharing a spiritual thought after dinner, I was just layed back, completely sprawled on the sofa on the verge of puking, just in agony. Elder Simmons wasn't in much better shape, but gave a quick spiritual thought and then we got out of there. We had to climb a big hill to our car but I didn't think I would make it up so I made Elder Simmons go up and then come pick me up. I can't even describe how much pain my stomach was in. I still don't know If i have completely recovered from it.

Well actually, I am out of time. I got to wrap this up, and I haven't even got to the good parts of my week yet. Anyways, I am doing great out here. I am enjoying myself, and we are finding lots of good things to do here to both strengthen the ward and find new people to bring into the church. We have been doing lots of service as well, which I really love. We have been helping this father and son split wood for their business, which I really enjoy and I am getting much better with an axe.

I love you guys, thanks for everything,

Elder Steed

Oct 23, 2011

I guess President decided that we are allowed to email today, which is really nice. We get our transfer calls tommorow! I'm really nervous for this one, I think there is a good chance either me or Elder Simmons could be leaving. Ken and Toni are pretty distraught with the thought of one of us leaving. But ya that was really cool that she emailed you guys. We were just over at their house and gave Ken a blessing, because he tore his meniscus doing MMA and is in pretty rough shape. They are seriously the coolest people ever though. Even if one of us moves before there baptism, we are pretty sure we will be able to get permission to travel back for their baptism. I wouldn't want to miss it.

Thanks for your email earlier in the week. I will check out those verses in Kings for sure. I really did like the BoM reading I did last week, I hope I didn't sound to bummed out about it. My testimony of this gospel really has increased so much in these last 3 months.

156 dollars this month? That seems like a lot... I didn't know about the 5 dollar fee. Ill be more careful. I just realized that some of the things I have used my VISA for haven't even been worth 5 dollars. I have used it for some dry cleaning, buying food occasionally, I bought some new socks and a new belt because I wrecked mine, but what really took it up was me and Elder Simmons both withdrew 40 pounds to help pay for Ken and Toni's wedding. Sorry I didn't get a chance to ask, but they are really struggling financially and can't afford the wedding costs. They are planning on doing a really small wedding, with probably just silver bands and only inviting like 5-10 people there (they aren't even inviting their parents) but they really just can't afford it. Me and Elder Simmons are trying to figure out the best way to give them the money, whether just discreetly in an unmarked envelope so they don't know it was us, or just giving it to them as a gift. We are just worried they wouldn't accept it. So I do have enough money each month for essential things, but different things keep coming up. Ill stop using it to buy food and just use it for clothes and other big expenses. Sorry about that.
I don't mind sending you and Mom both emails. I don't really have a lot of people to email anymore, a lot have already stopped.

It has been a pretty tough week, but i'll talk more about that in the letter to mom.

Good luck with the upcoming race. Let me know how it goes. I'll probably be emailing again on thursday or wednesday, but it might not be until next monday. I don't really know at this point.

Love Elder Steed

Oct 16, 2011

Sorry, I don't have long to write this week. Elder Simmons keeps distracting me. Thanks for sending your talk, Ill make sure to read it.
Sounds like things are still going well at home. Thanks so much for those photos! I loved seeing all you guys! Oh, and is that Logan Draycott alyssa is sitting with in that one like couples photo at fish creek park you sent me?

I can't believe Jackson is learning the french horn... that is ridiculous. Didn't dad used to play that as well?

Thats a funny calling you got. Should be easy though, but im sure once the leadership of the ward gets to know you they will keep calling you to bigger and better things. Not that any calling is small or less important though, of course.

Haha how do you make the Elders like it at our house? I don't know... I think you always will have the whole where are you from discussion. I think I like it most when we go to members houses and they just feel casual, like not having to worry about what they think or trying to hard to make us feel welcome. And of course it just gets better each time you go, and you start talking with them at church and then just really get to know them and become friends and just build a good relationship. Hopefully they aren't wasters or just really awkward. I'm really interested to hear how it goes and what you think, let me know for next week.

I haven't really grown that much. I think it is mostly just my whole life I have coasted through putting in very little effort and still being very successful in a lot of things. That doesn't work out here, so I think I'm just finally having to learn how to work hard or whatever. It's different, but I really do enjoy this life most days.

This week wasn't too exciting. I did the three day BoM study, I talked about that in Dad's letter. Then we had zone training on Friday, and so we really only had a couple of days to do real missionary work. So we didn't teach a lot of lessons this week, and we didn't find any new people, but It was still a good week and I think it was an important week in terms of my personal development. We had this one girl we were trying to teach out in Penzance this week, but she bailed on the teach last minute like three times so we are done with her. She kept coming up with really lame excuses. Josh and Stephanie have been too busy to see this week, havent been to church the last two weeks, and haven't answered our calls, so we are a little concerned about them. Josh actually just texted us like ten minutes ago, so hopefully we can get things back on track with them. Ken and Toni are doing amazing still. They are having some friends from their old church over tonight for a movie night, and are planning on telling their friends about their choice to get baptized. They are really worried it won't go well, so please include them in your prayers especially today!!

I got the package you sent over, thanks so much for that. That one gray long sleeved t-shirt is like the coolest t-shirt you have ever bought me. I really like it. And I loved getting all the sweets and stuff. Oh, and yes I am allowed to listen to Disney. We can listen to a lot of stuff I didn't think we were allowed to. And we are allowed to have iPod touches in this mission. And we all have portable DVD players. So it is a pretty up-to-date mission in terms of technology.

I'll have Elder Simmons keep sending the photos. Transfer date is coming up on Oct. 27, so we could only have about a week left together. I would like to stay here, but at the same time I wouldn't mind going somewhere else. Either way, we both have a feeling that we are going to be split up this time.

Also, I asked dad last week about what he thinks of me getting an electric razor, a sat-nav, and also about you guys sending me the thing from southland registries saying that I passed my test in a standard car. Can you remind him please?

Thanks so much for everything, I hope you guys have another great week,

Love Elder Steed