Berry, Conner T

Hey Everyone! This week, until Sunday, was unknowingly my companion, Elder Ojala's last week here and the new transfer is bringing some big changes! So I'll be staying in Staines, but the Zone is doubling in size because we are taking-in the Watford Stake and its respective missionaries. Now the Zone is called Staines-Watford. I'll have a new companion from Sweden, named Elder Palm and will be joined with him tomorrow. I'm excited and I think the changes will be good.    Happy belated Thanksgiving! We had a lot of Thanksgiving food this week which was great! A member in our ward even made some of my favorite desserts and dishes "American-style" the best she could, which turned out great.    I had an exchange with Elder Ohms in Kington. It was super cool when one of our friends we are teaching back in Staines, who goes to university there, was free to meet and have a lesson.    We got to celebrate Elder Ojala's birthday as well and we went to a famous chain...

This week was short and also long. Anyone relate? We had Zone Conference and Stake Conference this week. Brought me back to when I used to sit for 6 hours straight when I went hunting back home. Lots of meetings. But this week was super spiritually packed.    We dove deep into the Sermon on the Mount at Zone Conference and how the Beatitudes related symbolically to the Old Testament Tabernacle. My brain is still digesting those relations. Stake conference was focused completely on Spiritual Fortification. Lots of personal experiences were shared from speakers how they stayed Spiritually connected to God and what we could try to implement in our lives to stay Spiritually strong.   Something that stuck out to me was that our Stake President said when members of the Church fall away in their spiritual connection to God he usually finds that in the process individuals had stopped 1 of 3 things: saying earnest prayers, studying scripture, and going to church. It's so simple an...

Hard to get used to no sunlight around 4pm. But the work moves forward. It was a week full of finding. We tried some tracting which was pretty cool and there was this Church of England chapel that we saw and went into for a moment. It was completely empty. No one on site or around it. So it was cool to walk around and look at the different artwork and designs on the chapel walls.    I had exchanges in Addlestone with Elder Jones this week and that was really fun. In the evening there was a member who ordered us Peri Peri chicken and asked us if we wanted it mild, medium, or hot. I thought it would be from a place called Nandos which is a really popular Peri Peri chicken chain in the UK. I know that their version of "hot" really isn't that hot. Thinking it would be from Nandos we both told the member "hot" would be great. Well the chicken came from a place called Jango's—NOT Nando's— and it was SO HOT. I had to drink so much water and my nose was running ...

This week was super fun and full of surprises. We had Super MLC in London on Tuesday, which we barely made it in time for. Traffic was AWFUL. It's awesome to see how well the mission is doing and to council together about how we can move forward with faith.    We had exchanges and I went with Elder Johnson to his area in River Wey. We did a lot of searching and what was cool was that the last person we talked to was interested but with his girlfriend during her break at work and said he'd like to meet really soon. We thought he meant soon, as in the next few days, but we got a call after we went to the flat a couple mins later asking us to come back and teach him. That was cool and we introduced him to the Book of Mormon.    We got fed a lot this week by members which was so nice. I really enjoy this ward and the support of the members. Another miracle was that we had an appointment to visit this African Couple, where the wife was a member. We didn't know what she wa...