A week of changes... a new hair cut and a new area!!!

What a way to watch General Conference!!

Pizza, well that is something different...okay, maybe not.

I hope this isn't a sign of what he is eating all the time, he may regret it.

All packed up and ready to go. A clear study desk.

Reunion with the missionaries from his MTC group.

Elder Reynolds managed to meet up with missionaries from his MTC group at transfers.

In High
Wycombe ward there is me, Elder Hartshorn, Elder Price and Elder
Baines. Elder Price has served with Elder Hartshorn before and Elder
Baines is from Sheffield and has been out for 6 weeks or so! He is
going to be serving in America but because of problems with his visa,
he has started his mission here and will be leaving at some point!
Elder Baines is 6.5ft! All four of us are over 6ft and we live in the
same 2-man flat at the moment whilst they are finding a flat for me
and Elder Hartshorn! So I don't actually have a desk at the moment!
Haha! We all sleep in the same room, me and Elder Hartshorn sleep on
the floor, and have to prop the mattresses up in the morning to
provide space! Haha! It is very cramped for the four of us! Haha!

Seeing photographs like this, makes us feel confident that Elder Reynolds is enjoying himself.

Whilst we were at the Ashton Stake House in Ashton under Lyne, Elder Reynolds was several hundred miles away in the Epsom Ward Building watching the same conference at the same time

As you can see by this and subsequent photos, Elder Reynolds Is really struggling with eating. I have no idea where he puts it all.
Sacrilegious though how he is using shop bought tortillas. You wouldn't get away with that at home.

All I can say is that Elder Reynolds' Great Grandmother Southren always used to say 'you can't fatten a thoroughbred'. His Great Grandma Young always used to accuse him of 'having hollow legs'.

All I can say is from experience...'this doesn't last'.

Now this was fun! Brother F took us to a Carvery last Tuesday (the one before Tuesday just gone!). It was amazing! I loved the food! Brother F was surprised I went up for seconds! Haha! (Didn't have enough time to get more!) Loved it! Proper food! There was me, Elder Whitehead, Brother F and TK (a recent convert)! Good fun! 

Just a quick update on the Book of Mormons, they have not turned up yet! Haha! 

And also, I may be moving next Wednesday, so I am hoping they get here before then! I will let you know of the new address when I find out! Maybe hold off post for now, then I will tell you when I get there! Haha! I don't want to miss anything! 

This week has been pretty fun! On Tuesday, we were in a town called Banstead. We were talking to a lot of people! We approached a bus at the Bus stop where three men were standing, they were Bus Drivers. There was a Christian, a Muslim and an Atheist (don't worry this is not a joke!). We explained who we were (disciples of Jesus Christ) and shared our unique message (Eternal Families and living prophets on the Earth), the Christian walked off, the Muslim drove off in the Bus (we gave him a pass-along card, to learn more!) and we spoke to the Atheist! He was amazing! We spoke to him for quite a while, he knew of Mormons and wanted to find out more! We gave him a Book of Mormon, prayed with him and he promised us that he would read the Book of Mormon! Since he does not live in our area, we had to refer him to another set of missionaries! We actually referred quite a few people over the last two weeks, most people ready to receive the Gospel in our area, don't actually live in our area! Haha! 

(Just a little side note: On Thursday, we were getting on the train back into Epsom when we saw a camera crew and a face that I recognised but couldn't think of a name! They got onto the train we got on to and came off when we got off! They filmed him getting off the train, and I believe that we were walking behind him when he got off! Haha! It must have been for a train documentary or something? Haha! I may be on TV! Haha! It was interesting!)

On Friday, I was on exchange with Elder Avanesjan (German)! He is an amazing missionary! We had many cool experiences! We spoke to everyone on the street, even if it meant that we had to run to them! Haha! There are so many experiences I could share but I will only share one! We were crossing over the road when a woman walked passed on the other side, we waited for the lights to change in a our favour then ran to her! We shared with her what we know and she was very interested! She really wanted to find out more and we told her that we could share more of our message and would help her in gaining her own testimony and she said "Is it ok, because I am a Catholic?!". So of course we said it was fine, because we share it with EVERYONE!

Because we have been so busy it meant that we watched 4 conferences yesterday! Conference pretty much filled up our whole day! We still have one more to see, we will probably watch it tomorrow! It was pretty cool sustaining the three new apostles! It was super exciting! Haha!

Anyway, its been great hearing from you! Hope you are all enjoying yourselves, I think of you all the time! I look forward to next week!

Quick catch up.

With Steph's brother getting married on the 26th September, Elder Reynolds was not able to attend. We decided that we would have matching ties at the wedding so we bought Elder Reynolds a matching tie to wear on the same day. 'I wore the tie on Saturday! I love the tie! I love ties! It was really nice to get a new tie and felt nice to feel part of the event even though I was not there! Haha! Its been a fun week! 

 Sounds like the wedding was fun!' 

On Wednesday we stopped a student! She is a Christian and was really interested in finding out more about the church! We planned to meet her a couple of days after but her schedule changed so we could not do it! But then she told us that she had been chatting online with missionaries on Mormon.org after our last meeting! 

Then on Thursday, I was sat on the train to Dorking and this spider was crawling on my Book of Mormon, so I flicked it off but then it started to climb on this guys bag! So I let him know, he brushed it off his bag, I squished it and he brushed it under the seat! Haha! So then we started to talk! I told him about my mission and he was very
interested! He had just been to Corfu for his friend's wedding! I wish I could have spoken to him more, but
it came to our stop and I left him a pass-along card! 
(I in no way condone the injury to the spider, although I am sure it was no more than stunned and bruised during this encounter)

Yesterday, just before church, I was preparing myself for Sacrament and was being very reverent when Elder Whitehead nudged me! One of the Members was beckoning us over, so we walked out as Sacrament Meeting
was starting, Bishop Elliott (Scott Caffrey's friend) was getting up. So outside there was this couple that had just walked in who were very interested in finding out more about the church! We then took them into the meeting and they listened to everyone's testimonies and said amen to all of them, participated in Gospel Principles and Priesthood (the woman thought Relief Society was really good!) and loved it all! We spoke to them after and he informed us that he has been on a 5-day Fast to come closer to Christ and had been led to the Church! He said he wants to be baptised as soon as! Haha! They have already talked about marriage and are hoping to do that soon! (As you cannot be baptised if you are living together till after marriage!) It was amazing! And the lessons were about the Family Proclamation, which was perfect for their situation as they are expecting a baby!


So these photos are pretty cool! The first is of the post I received from Primary! It was amazing to receive these! I just had to take a photo of it! So could you tell the Primary Kids a huge THANK YOU from me! It really made my day and they even sent me some Jelly Babies that I will always be grateful for! I really love to hear from the Kids! They are amazing! Very pretty pictures and they are very thoughtful! So I will always be looking at them!



The second is of me with my Book of Mormon that I have been marking up. I have finished it today! So I have gone through the Book of Mormon and highlighted all the things about Christ and things that Christ has said, so as you can imagine, a lot of marking! So that little bit of tape on the spine says "Jesus Christ", so then I know what is highlighted inside! This is what I want to do with the Book of Mormons you have sent but with different topics highlighted! Like the next one will be highlighted to show the many patterns in the Book of Mormon!

Growing in confidence.

This pass week has been a lot of ups and downs! I have had a lot of fun! 

We had exchanges last Tuesday! I was with Elder Egen, sadly we did not take any photos! 

But we had a lot of fun talking to people on the streets! I stopped a man who was Greek! We gave a brief overview of the restoration and he just shouted "this is what I need!". Hopefully we will get to see him again soon, there is a bit of a problem with the language barrier! He doesn't speak English too well! Hopefully we will be able to get the help from a return missionary soon! He served in Greece and has just come back! 

Obviously, after the exchange you would hope I took something from it and was able to apply it to the rest of my mission! Well, the next day, when I was put back with Elder Whitehead, we went into Redhill! And we were talking to everyone! Haha! Whilst Elder Whitehead was on the phone I decided that I would run after a few people and let them know of the Restored Gospel! Sadly, not everyone listened but I loved talking to people! It has started to become a lot easier to talk to people on the streets now! 

We finished the week with 36 lessons, which includes lessons on the street and less actives/recent converts! But that number doesn't matter as we were talking to as many people as we could! Which hopefully we will be able to keep up this week! And the rest of our missions! Haha!

Aww man! I miss the Carol Concert Rehearsals! Wow! Sounds like you are having a lot of fun! I love the pumpkins! (Not sure if he was talking about those people in the choir or the pumpkins we have growing in our garden, I will let you decide!)

Also, a scripture that I thought would be good to share was: 3 Nephi 18:19-21.


19 Therefore ye must always pray unto the Father in my name;

20 And whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, which is right, believing that ye shall receive, behold it shall be given unto you.

21 Pray in your families unto the Father, always in my name, that your wives and your children may be blessed. 

It's a scripture I read at the beginning of the week and thought I should share it with you!

Zone Conference photograph with Sister Manage (also from the Ashton Stake)

Catch up on two weeks.

Here we go two new photos!

One of the Door of Miracles

and one showing what we got with the money received from *** to treat ourselves. We loved it! So tell *** thank you from us, it really made our day!

I have only got two hours to email! I try to reply as I want to keep on hearing from people! I understand how hard it is to email someone on their mission! What I tend to do is copy and paste a story from the week into the email then answer any questions and ask them how they are doing! It usually fills up the time nicely! I always love to see that people care, it lifts my spirits and I like to thank them! I make you then the mission president the prioritise then I email others if I can! Especially those closest friends that I miss loads! Haha!

So yeah, the last week has been pretty good! We have been continuing to teach R*, taught her four times now, Had members with us for three of those lessons! So that made a huge difference in helping her! 

It was interesting, we had planned to teach a lesson with one our American members in the ward and prior to the lesson, I started to feel really worried that he was going to see how bad of a teacher I am! I was scared that he would talk to people about the rubbish English missionary! Haha! But we went in, taught R* the Gospel of Jesus Christ and I think that it was one of our best lesson! It was amazing! There were three of us teaching and it worked!

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, yesterday when we taught R* we asked her if she would be baptised on the 11th October and she said yes! Haha! So that is pretty exciting!

We have been working a lot with the ward council recently, trying to get them pumped about missionary work! Haha! And Brother F* (someone you have heard from on Facebook I believe) taught us something amazing, that we need to build our own faith before we share it with others. We should make it part of who we are. He likens it to finding an amazing free restaurant! If we really understand how amazing the gospel is, sharing it will come naturally! 

2 Months Completed Already

It came at about 9.30am we were in companionship study at that point! We heard the buzzer, and was like "what was that?". We hadn't heard it before, then I looked out the window and said "it's ASDA!" And ran for the door! It was really good! A few substitutes! One for the beef and grapes! And then substitutes for the jelly babies and shortcakes! But I wasn't bothered, we had some shopping!

It's been a fun week! At the moment I am in the ward clerk's office and am emailing till the zone leaders and the Crawley elders get here, we are going to be playing some football!

On Sunday we had a mission fast for The Season of Miracles! Just to let you know, President Gubler had a 
vision of our mission having a season of miracles. Just like when the church was first established in England, where there were 1000's of baptisms, it is going to happen again! All the missionaries in the England London South mission have been preparing themselves spiritually by improving their faith. We have all been challenged to read the Book of Mormon between 6/12 weeks (depending on if you are new!), with three questions in mind: Who am I? Who is He (Jesus Christ)? As a disciple of Jesus Christ, I will...? So yesterday's fast was all about asking Heavenly Father to open the floodgates to the season of miracles! It is super exciting!

Last week we were able to meet our goal of having 20 lessons! So we loved that!

The youth doing well then? I miss them loads! I think of them all the time! They are amazing! I was lucky to be with them.

Transfer Day

Some anxieties this week as we waited (perhaps not so) patiently for an email from Elder Reynolds on Monday, which did not arrive.

Eventually, the email arrived on Tuesday.

Hi Mum,

So this is my email for this week! Today is P-Day because of moves but I'm staying!

A couple of photos were added. Unfortunately, no explanation as to who the gentleman is. Possibly a random person they met in the street and wanted to have a photograph with his motor bike. Hopefully there will be a bit of an explanation next week.

I was in the hairdressers today and One Direction was on, I was like "opposition comes in weird ways, it seems like all the good music and films have come out as I have left!" Haha! It doesn't bother me too much though! I'm just happy to be doing what I am doing! So yeah, today I had my first proper missionary haircut! It was fun! I feel great! Recently, I have found a way of staying positive! And its by singing Bring Me Sunshine (Morcambe and Wise) I was singing it the other day in the rain, and I felt great! We went knocking on doors and the rejections didn't bother me! 

We had an amazing experience yesterday, we went to visit a referral! We were on the train to visit her and then I received a call, and it was her! She asked when we were able to come over to bring her the Book of Mormon, and I said "how about in the next 20 minutes?"  So we walked over, went into her house and taught her about the Restoration! It was brilliant! She told us that she had been listening to the Book of Mormon on the internet and she knew that it was true! She doesn't feel ready for baptism yet but she will be praying about it! Its mega exciting!  

Its been fun this transfer and ever since I came into the field as I have been studying the Book of Mormon everyday! I love it! It has really built my faith in Christ! I am starting to fully understand what he has done for us! Also, another interesting this in the Book of Mormon that I loved is the soldier in Alma 44:12-15. He is amazing! You should get Malachi to read that chapter! Haha! What an amazing example the soldier is to just stand up like that! 

Belated blog, thanks to Talktalk

An apology that this did not get published last week.

For some reason talktalk decided that we were no longer allowed to receive emails. Rather than contact us they just prevented them from getting through.

Anyhow there are a few extracts from Elder Reynolds' email from the week commencing 24th August 2015. He hadn't written very much as he had written a whole load for Malachi as he was celebrating his 10th birthday.



The photograph is from Malachi's baptism 2 years ago. He had asked Isaac to baptise him.

Now today is a special day, it is your day, it is the day we all celebrate when Malachi Joseph Reynolds came into our lives. Now you are 10 years old, you are getting more and more grown up... Just know that you have your family right behind you! I may be far away, but I am here if you need anything!

Elder Reynolds gave a little bit more information about his companion (trainer).
Elder Whitehead is the second eldest in his family, he has an older brother who has got back from his mission. He loves to cook, he cooked for his family back home!

Elder Reynolds is the eldest of 5 siblings. Whilst he is away, life at home continues and so this year. Eliza left secondary school (She picked up her GCSE results today). She is going on to study at Ashton Sixth Form College. Kian, has finished primary school so we have just picked up his school uniform for secondary school. Malachi is now in the top class at school. Alisha has now moved up into class 4. One of his cousins has just got engaged and another is looking forward to a new arrival. 

In addition to that, his friends are also having significant events. One turned 18 last week and others have been picking up there GCSE results. 

Amazing to think we have had these things happen in such a short period of time.

"Yeah, I've had an interesting week! On Tuesday, I was on exchanges with Elder Belnap (zone leader) and it was amazing! 

We had an appointment at 7 and we had asked for assistance from a less active so he could help with translation. We got to the house, and the person we were going to teach wasn't in! So we decided to knock on some doors for a few minutes, no success! Then the member thought it would be good to stop by someone he knew (his mum's friend). We knocked on the door, she opened it, spoke to him for a couple of minutes in Portuguese and we walked in! We taught her the restoration, with the member playing the key role of translating and bearing testimony. She felt the spirit in that lesson, and so did all of us! It was an amazing lesson! We will be seeing her again this week!"

Elder Reynolds highlighted some of the things he has learnt. 

I have learnt a lot so far! I have learnt that we are the noble and great ones and that if we focus on Christ, we can do anything!

I find it difficult to start conversations with people on the street. I can often find it hard to teach. But when I can, I love doing it! We have learnt that if there is a lot of opposition, something great is about to happen!

Month 1 finished

 Well a month has been and gone. Elder Reynolds has completed 1/24 of his mission already. Time really is flying. He sent a few photographs this week of his flat. As you can see, it is very simply decorated, very few possessions to talk about. Having seen a number of missionary flats, this one looks really nice. Quite anxious about the light carpet though. Unless his appetite has changed, luckily Elder Reynolds is not one for squash or any other drinks that could stain the carpet :)


He looks to have a very organised study area with a few home comforts (CD player and Speakers).

Elder Reynolds explained the meaning of the post-it notes on this door.

He said that it is 'the miracle door'. Whenever, they have an experience that they consider to be a miracle, they make a note of this on a post it note and put it on the door as a reminder to them of what had happened.

So, quick story! Elder Whitehead and I were asked to pray over which Former Investigators that could be baptised in the coming weeks. One of them was an 11 year old. Her dad is a Less Active of the church. So we sent him a text that literally said: Hey B. Does your daughter want to be baptised? So, yes, very bold, very upfront! To our disappointment he replied with a 'no' and a 'thanks anyways'. 

We then thought that a good idea would be to start English Lessons, as we are teaching quite a few Portugese people that don't speak English too well. So we asked B if he knew of anyone that could benefit from English Lessons. Which he replied with: yes, I know many people who would benefit, including myself (he is from South America)! So we arranged to meet up with him and further discuss the lessons. He has his own businesses and one is for welfare, so he is all about helping people! He knows factories of people who don't speak English too well! Also his own family would benefit, at the time of the discussion, his wife and her parents were there (they are from Portugal), so we had 4 "Students" already as B put it! Haha! B had already got in contact with the council about a building we could use, we just told him that we could do it at the Church! 

He then said that even though it is benefiting the people, it will benefit us as missionaries, as we will be able to teach those people English and also teach them about the Gospel if they were interested! As we were coming to the end of the little meeting, B asked that we would give his wife a blessing, to which we gladly accepted! We were told that she hadn't been feeling too well, so it was a blessing concerning her health. Elder Whitehead gave the blessing, and there were a few tears from the family. Then B explained that in the last week, they had found out that his wife had cancer in her kidney, so the fight against cancer had started for them. B fully understood the power of the Priesthood. He then finished off the visit by telling us that his daughter, was on Holiday with her mum and if she would wanted to be baptised then he wouldn't stop her!

 A View into the Life of a Missionary:

06.30 Arise, pray, exercise (30 minutes) and prepare for the day.

07.30 Breakfast

08.00 Personal study: the Book of Mormon, Other scriptures, missionary library and Preach My Gospel. Emphasise the doctrines of the missionary lessons.

09.00 Companion study: share what you have learned during personal study, prepare to teach, practice teaching, study chapters from Preach My Gospel and confirm plans for the day.

10.00 Begin proselyting

You may take an hour for lunch and Dinner at times during the day that fit best with your proselyting time. Normally dinner should be finished no later than 18.00.

21.00 Return to living quarters (unless teaching a lesson; then return by 21.30), and plan for the next day's activities (30 Minutes). Write in your journal, prepare for bed, pray.

10.30 Retire to bed.

A page from Elder Reynolds' diary indicating plans for the week as well as goals in relation to teaching and personal and companionship goals.