Oct 23, 2017
So the "hurricane" that was supposed to come across Scotland was basically half a day of really rainy weather with some wind. It didn't do much over here in Scotland but I heard in Ireland that it ripped the roofs off of some of the houses and caused some power outages as well. All of the missionaries in Ireland had to stay indoors on that day last week. I also heard the prime minister in Ireland had everyone staying in doors and everything was basically shut down. I also heard that the storm made the sun red in England. We didn't really have much service to do over here in Scotland because it wasn't much more than the typical weather over here. I'm sure they got some service opportunities over in Ireland though.
Well that's good to heard you guys had a good week. Here in Cumbernauld it has been pretty good. We have been meeting with John this week. He apparently is going on a two week holiday to New York and Boston with a friend. But he has continued to read the scriptures and pray and he was at church yesterday so that was good.
We were also on exchanges last Friday with the zone leaders in Glasgow. It was interesting to see the difference between a big city like Glasgow and a town like Cumbernauld.
So I'm not sure if I have told you this word before but its one that I've heard quite a bit lately. (I don't think its been directed at me though). It's called skiving. It basically means talking all the time instead of working. Usually they will just say "stop your skiving" instead of start working.
This week we also have a zone conference in Dundee with Elder Renlund. We also had interviews with President Donaldson and I heard Sister Donaldson say that they had ten minutes each to speak and then the rest of the meeting will be handed over to Elder Renlund. Zone conferences are several hours long so I wonder what he will speak about? Elder Renlund also gave all of us missionaries a few general conference talks to read. One of them was President Uchtdorf's talk "Fourth Floor Last Door" and in it he talks about faith and prayers. He talks about how prayers require faith but no matter how hard we pray or exercise faith there are two things that faith can't do. The first one is take away someones agency and the second one is force our will upon God. I thought that was really interesting because sometimes it can seem like there are a lot of things that we want and we are wondering why Heavenly Father isn't giving us what we are asking for. Sometimes I wonder if our prayers fall into one of those categories. However, I know that Heavenly Father answers prayers even though it may not be the answer we want here.
So I know the date on this one says it is July but I haven't been the best at taking pictures lately but here is one of Buchanan Street in Glasgow. It's pretty much the main street of the city.
Well I hope you guys have a great week! I'm doing grand here in Cumbernauld
Love,
Elder Calley
