I LOVE MANCHESTER! - Manchester, England

 my acrostic poem/group email for you

Incredible week!

Light the world!

Oh so excited for Christmas

Very busy

Everyone needs the Gospel!

Make sure everyday counts

Accountability is key

Never enough time!

Cold cold cold

Happy as can be

Exhausted

Sleep faster

Training elder Pohořelický! let's gooo!

Excited for this transfer!

Read your Book of Mormon everyday!

!

(Much love, Elder McConkie)

jmcconkie@myldsmail.net

Dare to Stand Alone! - Manchester, England

Hello Loves!

It's been a brilliant 2 weeks. Manchester is the greatest. 

Transfers:

Transfer calls were yesterday and the twin towers of the EMM are splitting up. Elder Carlson is off to Chorley to be a ZL and I'm training a new missionary here in Man South! I get my trainee tomorrow morning and I'm so excited for this transfer. 

Members:

So we aren't allowed to use the "I'm a Mormon" pass along cards anymore so I turned a bunch of them into little playing cards for object lessons with members! The Members here are so great and are key in missionary work so we've been trying to help them see that everyone everywhere can do missionary work. No excuses!

Grateful:

We had a street Display in Sale on Saturday. And I don't know what was happening but bible bashers were just coming from everywhere!

10 minutes in, a man came up to me and told me I was wasting my life away, that Joseph Smith was a fraud, and that I should just quit now and go home. This isn't the first time this has happened of course but this man was trying to tear me apart and I almost almost almost lost my cool (please note that I am not using the C word in slang but to refer to my temper). So my patience was tested and then I met two other bashers who were just ridiculous and it took all my willpower to not just destroy them with doctrine from the scriptures. 

After the third I turned around, looked up at the sky for a second, took a deep breath, and then a scripture popped into my head:

2 Nephi 6:17-"...for the mighty God shall deliver His covenant people. For thus saith the Lord: I will contend with them that contendeth with thee-" 

And the spirit hit me, and It confirmed to me this idea that the Lord was on my side, that my Heavenly Father was with me helping me along the way and that I could trust Him. 

I kept talking to people and within the next five minutes found a man named David! The spirit took over the conversation and as I bore testimony of the book of mormon I told him that if he read it, he could trust God and that he could know for himself. It was amazing to testify of something I had just gained a witness of.

The Lord is preparing people to hear the gospel!

Hurrah for Israel!

Elder McConkie

PS I dunked on Elder Carlson let's gooooooo

Usain Bolt - Manchester, England

Hello friends and family!

What a week! Oh my days it went fast.

This week was busy and Elder Carlson and I have been quite literally sprinting all over Manchester in our suits and sidebags going from place to place because there is never enough time in a day. I remember watching elders in Prague run around in their suits and thinking that it was the most missionary thing possible so when I do it I just think to myself "Wow! I'm really a missionary!" it's great

We've had a lot of great lessons too with some of our new friends. One of which is this man I miraculously found thanks to the spirit, named Pascal. I don't think I've ever met someone who loves Jesus Christ as much as Pascal does. Usually people see our badges and run away but Pascal saw my badge and said:

 "Oh yes! Wonderful. I love Jesus. Yes yes yes. Very good! When shall we meet?" 

He's the man! and he is so excited to read the Book of Mormon once we get him a French copy this week. 

Another one of our new friends we met this week is named Sheffield! I was talking with him and asked what he was studying at University. He told me he was studying American history. I pulled out a Book of Mormon and said:

"Thats great! We have a book all about American History!" 

He is amazing and so prepared to hear the gospel. We hope to meet with him this week.

Some other fun stuff:

I street contacted Frankenstein which was pretty great

I started crying at a members house because I had the spiciest pepper of my whole life sweeeet goodness I was dying

On one of our bus rides we got hit by a car and then had to sprint to our tea appointment

Our oven is broken so I cooked apple pie in a frying pan

Elder Carlson is a baller

Luke 15 is amazing

I LOVE MANCHESTER

Hurrah for Israel!

Elder McConkie