March 14, 2016

Hike to the top of Bray Head with Elder Giles

Hello everybody!  Sorry this email is so late today! Elder Giles and I went out and hiked the Bray head this morning so the first few hours were devoted to that!  It has been a good day so far.  The view from the top is incredible!

This past week has been a good one, a little slow with appointments falling through, but still a good week nonetheless!  Anyway, here it is…

Panoramic View from the top of Bray Head

MONDAY- We emailed and then we shopped and then just took a chill day since we were both exhausted.  We spent some time at Church, and that was fun as well.  I got to practice my piano skills! But Monday was just a nice relaxing day.

TUESDAY- We had District Meeting in Dublin in the morning.  It was a pretty good meeting.  I gave some more instruction.  For some reason, I have been asked to instruct at the last 3 District Meetings and Elder Giles and myself will be instructing again tomorrow.  But it's all good.  I love teaching!  After the meeting, we headed back to good ole Bray and taught 'P.F.'  He is less active and we have been seeing him for the past little while.  We finally decided that it would be a good idea to show him the Book of Mormon animated series and we were right!  He was very engage in the show and he paid attention.  Normally, he isn't very attentive during the lessons, but this one worked out really well.  After that, we spent some more time chapping.  No potentials, but we were working hard!

WEDNESDAY- We did some chapping.  We also did a bit of GQing.  It was pretty nice.  We then returned to the flat for lunch and then we decided to do a little bit of area book finding.  We were able to set up an appointment from that, so we were stoked!  We then spent the rest of the day finding some more.  We met tons of people.  There are lots of foreigners in Bray, so sometimes you meed some real characters! Anyway, we finished off the night with some dinner with Erik and Erin.  They made some awesome tacos.  Like, some of the best tacos I have ever had in my life.  It was absolutely amazing!  That was an incredible dinner appointment. After dinner, we played some Farkle and then we headed home.

THURSDAY- was good.  We did some phone calls in the morning and then we went out finding.  Bray is a small town and we don't have many people to teach, so we spend a lot of time finding.  But then we had a lunch appointment with our branch mission leader and he made us some tacos.  They were awesome, too!  Tacos, Tacos, Tacos!!! WOOOOOOOOOO!!!  It was really good!!  I have had a bit of tacos this week.  But after lunch, we went to the Church and did our weekly planning.  Pretty uneventful there.  Weekly planning can be a real drag sometimes.  Ugh! Afterward, we did some finding on Main Street.  It was okay, but we didn't find anybody.  Main Street was pretty dead for some reason.  But then we taught our English class and it went really well.  We only had one person show up this week and his name was Sergio.  He is from Rio and he is really cool.  So we taught him some English and then we turned in for dinner.

FRIDAY- was pretty uneventful.  We did a lot of finding.  And I mean, a lot! It was crazy.  And the even scarier part is nobody was home all day!  The town was like a ghost town. It was a little bit weird.  At least it seemed like that.  But later that evening, we went over to the Scott's for dinner.  They made us homemade pizza! It was pretty good.  Elder Giles and myself made our own pizza even!  It was pretty fun.  After dinner, we almost missed the bus and it only comes once every hour, so we had to run as fast as we could and wave it down to pick us up.  That was awesome.  It just really confirmed to me how much I hate running.  But we made it! Woo!

SATURDAY- was pretty fun.  First thing in the morning, we traveled to Arklow to go see Collette.  The drive down to Arklow is a really pretty drive.  She fed us and it was awesome.  She make chicken and potatoes and stuffing and a whole Thanksgiving dinner, pretty much!  When she let us in, she said she had just made a "light" lunch.  Tell you what, that meal about put me to sleep! It was great! Collette is really nice.  She is a recently re-activated member and we are helping her get her testimony back.  She has been reading the Book of Mormon a lot lately and she can't put it down! So we are helping her understand what is in it and we also gave her a blessing since she will be having surgery in a few weeks.  It was a really great lesson.

After that, we headed back to Bray and went by to teach 'A'.  He wasn't in. Again.  We tried to call him and text him but no answer.  So we just went finding.  Then we had a sit down and really just thought about what we can do better in this area.  We have some really good ideas so hopefully things start getting better!  That night we also ordered some pizza.

SUNDAY- was good.  We had a really nice church meeting.  Elder Giles spoke and the meeting was very enlightening. The rest of the classes were good and I taught Gospel Principles.  The lesson went well.  After church, we did some more finding and then went through some potentials and invited them to Family Home Evening tonight.  But Sunday for the most part was more relaxed.  But still a good missionary Sunday.  Well everyone, that was the week!  Hope all of ya'lls have had a good week as well.  Talk to you soon.

Till the work is done!

-Elder Mickelsen

Practicing my selfie skills :)

March 7, 2016

Hello Everybody! Another week has come and gone.  This week was a little slow, so the update isn't very long or very interesting.  Sorry about that, but hey! That's the moves week for you! Anyway, here it goes!

MONDAY- was email and clean day so we did just that.  We emailed and then we headed back to the flat and Elder Bates started packing while I cleaned.  Nothing much really to report.  We also had dinner with a member at a place called Eddie Rockets.  It's like this American style diner, so it was pretty great.  But other than that, nothing much to report for Monday.

TUESDAY- was pretty fun. We did some GQing in the morning and then we headed back to the flat so Elder Bates could finish packing since we had to head to Dublin that night.  We also visited 'P.F.', which was good.  So I made some cookies, Elder Bates finished packing and then we headed to Dublin to spend the night with the Zone Leaders since we have a crazy moves day tomorrow.

WEDNESDAY- was nuts! We got up at 5:30 in the morning so we could take Elder Bates and the other missionaries that are moving to the bus station.  That was an early start.  Then the rest of us that didn't move spent a good chunk of the day taxiing other missionaries around to their individual areas.  Once we had a few minutes of free time, we did a little bit of looking around Dublin.  Dublin is a really nice city.  We went to this touristy shop and I got a hoodie and a shirt.  Then at 5:30 in the evening, Elder Giles arrived.  He was born in Utah and has lived in Arizona for a few years but he and his family have lived all over Europe.  Elder Giles spent most of his life in Germany and England.  His parents are in England now for the next three years.  

We quickly rounded up our stuff and headed back to Bray since we had a dinner appointment with the Rosas that evening.  The dinner went well, they made pork chops and chips.  It was nice.  Then we headed home and absolutely crashed from the exhaustion.  Good day though.

THURSDAY- We had some weekly planning.  Always good doing weekly planning, especially with a new companion.  After planning, we made a stop by McDonald's and got a Shamrock Shake.  Yes, everybody, that is correct.  I had a shamrock shake.  In March.  In Ireland.  It was as awesome as it sounds.  After that, we spent a good chunk of the day doing some finding and Elder Giles unpacked.  Thursday was great.

The Shamrock Shake, in March, in Ireland!

FRIDAY- was awesome!  We did finding pretty much all day and then we had a meal appointment with Tom and John McDaid.  They are really nice guys.  They fed us ramen.  My first Ramen meal appointment.  It was great!  But we just had a really good time on Friday.

SATURDAY- was great, too.  The weather was absolutely fantastic!  It was really warm and sunny in the morning! It was so great!  It made finding so much better but later that evening, we went to the seafront to go GQing and no joke- a giant hail storm hit right as we stepped onto the boardwalk.  It was really crazy!  But it was kind of fun to just stand there and watch people run all over the place seeking shelter.  Gave us a good chuckle.  Then we did some more finding to finish off the night and we called it a day.

SUNDAY- was nice and relaxing.  We had church, which was good.  It was fast and testimony meeting and also Mother's Day, so there were a lot of good testimonies.  Then after church, we went over to the Jackson's house so Elder Giles could Skype his family.  That was really fun.  I didn't Skype though.  I gotta wait until May when it's Mother's Day in America.  After that, we headed back to Bray to have dinner at President Bunda's house.  They made this really good spaghetti stuff.  I have never eaten so much in my life.  Fasting this week made me starving.  It was great.  But that was Sunday!

Well this week wasn't the best in terms of finding potentials,  but we are looking to turn that around in the coming weeks!  People are becoming more hardened by the day!  And we need to work harder to combat that!  The Lord will bless his people.  I know this to be true.

Till the work is done!  Love you all!

-Elder Mickelsen