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

Alma 38! - Manchester, England

Hello Loves!

It has been a rollercoaster of a week as well as a rollercoaster of a P day and I have no time to write an email. But people say a picture is worth a thousand words or something like that so you can make up your own stories of how my week went!

If I had time for a spiritual thought it would be on Alma 38 it's brilliant

Love you all!

Read your Book of Mormon every single day!!

Hurrah for Israel

Elder McConkie

Elder Carlson & Elder McConkie

Elder Carlson & Elder McConkie

Tallest Companionship in Church History - Manchester, England

Hello loves!

I'm loving Manchester South and my new companion Elder Carlson is fantastic! He's from Utah and is probably the only other missionary in the world taller than I am. He's 7 foot and I'm 6'9 so we've had some funny reactions this week to our height and multiple drunks have tried to fight us to show their buddies how tough they are. Good fun.

We've been working really well together. We've found loads of new people we hope to meet up with this week and start teaching. I am consistently astounded at the influence our Heavenly Father has in this work and how he leads us to those who are ready to hear the gospel. It is truly a blessing and there's no way we could do it by ourselves. 

My trainer Elder Audrlicky told me the day before I left Liverpool that the best missionaries are like Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan could go into any game at any time and instantly make a difference and change the game. Man South is my new arena and I'm here to make a difference! I don't want to just go through the motions on my mission, I want to teach repentance and baptize converts. I want to invite as many people as I can to come unto Christ. 

As I've been thinking about the change in church schedule I've studied the talks from general conference. Over and over they say that this will help "deepen conversion". I think this change has come because far too often members just go through the motions and aren't building their testimonies or faith as frequently as our heavenly father would hope for us. If you feel like you are just going through the motions of the gospel, that's OK. You can change! I invite and plead with you to start thinking how to make your homes and lives more centered on the atonement and gospel of Jesus Christ. Take the necessary steps to build your faith!! Be a spiritual Michael Jordan yeah? 

Much Love to all of you! 

Hurrah for Israel!

Elder McConkie

Pics:

Me, Elder Carlson, and the new Elder Chen!

Me and elder C

Manchester-Bound - Liverpool, England

Hello Loves!

Crazy crazy week, sweet goodness it's been busy

Some highlights:

Elder Audrlicky and I went to Manchester on Wednesday for a new missionary training and it was so fun to see the MTC group again

On Saturday we woke up early to go fill the font in Liverpool. The font was pretty filthy so we spent a good hour cleaning it so there wouldn't be hair and bugs in the water. We finally finished cleaning the font and then started filling it and after a few minutes it started spewing this nasty thick yellow water and we flipped out. So we drained the font, cleaned the font again, and Thank goodness it all worked out eventually. 

Ewan and Kay were baptised later that day in clean water and it was wonderful.

I loved conference so much!! I am grateful for a living prophet who has a vision for this church and is actively making great strides to further the work of the Lord. 

I'm leaving Liverpool tomorrow! I've been transferred to the Manchester South area and I'm stoked for this next transfer

Much love! 

Hurrah for Israel!

Elder McConkie

jmcconkie@myldsmail.net

1.the MTC crew

2.baptism day

3. My man elder Chen!

4.cleaning the font/I fixed the mirror thing woot

the MTC crew

baptism day

cleaning the font/I fixed the mirror thing woot

Faith Cereal - Liverpool, England

Hello Loves!

It's been a crazy week!

A lot of our plans fell through over and over this week and there have been some hefty days of street contacting and door knocking. We've been able to find lots of great people though that I'm looking forward to teaching this week.

Who else is STOKED for General Conference

Liverpool is great because there's 3 other companionships in the ward and we get to go on tons of exchanges because my trainers are zone leaders! We've been with the Southport, Warrington, Crosby, and Liverpool B elders and it's so much fun

I just burned my pizza because I spaced out writing this spiritual thought so please enjoy it:

I've been studying lots about faith and decided that faith isn't like a little seed it's more like honey hoops (off brand honey nut cheerios). When you pour cereal into a bowl, then the next step is to add milk. You naturally think "Oh yeah this needs some milk" because who wants just plain cereal. The difference between faith and belief is that faith naturally invokes action. You can't have genuine faith, not do anything and pack your bags for the celestial kingdom, that's nonsense. If you have genuine faith then you're going to naturally apply some sort of action in response. For example, if you have genuine faith in Jesus Christ then you will NATURALLY want to repent frequently and sincerely, you will NATURALLY want to make and keep covenants with God and you will NATURALLY have a desire to endure to the end and remain worthy to have the holy ghost with you. So yeah, faith is like honey hoops! The more you act on your faith (add your milk to your cereal) then the more miracles you'll see (The more tasty your bowl of cereal)! 

Metaphors are pretty neat aren't they

Have a great week everyone

Listen to General Conference!

Much love

Elder McConkie

Jmcconkie@myldsmail.net