Good morning, everybody! The sun continues to shine and the time continues to fly here in sunny (for England, at least) Basingstoke!

 

To be honest, I don't know what's happening any more. We have forgotten ourselves and gotten lost in the Lord's work... and He is moving everything forward.

There is a fire about missionary work in this ward that I have never before seen. It is incredible. Everyone is getting involved. The key has been persistence. We just keep asking- over and over again. If they back out, we remind them that they backed out! We hold them accountable for the quality of member missionary work that is being done within the ward... and it's working. We were able to get people out with us every night last week. We received multiple (for lack of a better word) endorsements in church. It's not about the month of invitation any more, it's (as our Bishop so perfectly put it) "the start of something good" and "how things need to be from now on." What a miracle.

Besides the explosion of member missionary work, the other thing that the Lord has blessed us with is courage. How, you might ask? It started a couple of weeks ago in Zone Training. A recently returned missionary from Uraguay gave an exceptional presentation on inviting everyone to be baptized- including on the street. I think the whole zone really caught hold of this idea. We began to account for the number of baptismal invitations we extended. We learned that the number of baptismal invitations that we extend is directly proportional to how little fear we have. We need to be bold- especially when we have our members with us. 

 

I have never been happier. Truly, this is a marvelous work and wonder. Earlier, I stated that I didn't know what was happening. Allow me to make a correction- what is happening is that the Lord is moving his work forward. It is as simple as that. We have the blessing of be his vessals. All we have to do is be smart, follow the White Handbook, open our mouths, and have no fear. Perfect love casteth out all fear. So, essentially, the more fear we lose, the more love we have. The more we love others the more we will challenge them to claim the blessings of Eternal Life. That is what it's all about, really.

Love you all - Elder Frederickson

Love these shots of Matthew! Such a happy missionary!!!

Dear faithful friends and family,

I love being a missionary! It is such a blessing to serve God with all of my heart, might, mind, and strength each day.

It's P-Day today (obviously...) our first proper one in two weeks. It will consist pretty much just letter writing. It'll be good to just be able to relax a little bit haha it's always a good feeling.

I don't know what is happening in this area (or the Reading Zone, for that matter...) perhaps it's the fact that we were motivated by seeing an apostle of the Lord. Yes, I'd say that's what it is!

Somehow, we managed to pick up ten new investigators this week. To be honest, I have no idea how that happened. I guess we just allowed the Lord to work through us, we put in our all, and miracles happened. Now, I am starting to learn a lesson about miracles- if you have a high number of miracles, a high number of new investigators, a high number of lessons... a high number of anything, really, then some of them are going to fall through. That's just the way life goes. For example, we really took our Zone Leaders council to heart when they said we needed to be inviting everyone to be baptized. We saw an absolutely amazing miracle regarding this on Wednesday. We had a new baptism date. Then, we saw her in town the next day and she informed us she had "better things to do with her life." Is this discouraging? Yes, obviously. It is discouraging for one days miracle to become the next days (struggling for a word here...) anti-miracle?

 

We were, however, able to call down miracles from on high throughout the week. The triumphs FAR outweighed the tragedies this week. What a blessing!

 

All in all the work is moving forward at a remarkable pace here in Basingstoke

I know this is the work of God. I am blessed to be called to do His work each day. The fruits of living the Gospel of Jesus Christ are delicious. My invitation to all of you is to partake of that fruit today!

I love you all so much.

Faithful family and friends,

 

Where do I even begin? Even if I used the entire two hours of allotted email time, I couldn't begin to describe half of the incredibleness that happened this week. I suppose I should start with the most exciting thing, which will help all of you understand why I did not have a chance to email yesterday.

 

On Saturday night, my companion was doing his normal accounting. Elder La Mazza said that at the end of accounting he had an announcement that would blow everyones mind and apparently was the best announcement of his mission. I, having a tendency to be slightly cynical when it comes to announcements, kind of brushed it off... until we heard the announcement. He said "we might not have P-Day on Monday." He then continued that there MIGHT be a special Zone Conference. In Hyde Park Chapel (central London.) With the London Mission (also, IN the London Mission might I add!) With a "special speaker." The western zones would not get to go. Here was the catch though, we wouldn't know until 10 AM on the day of! We needed to be in our very best, ready to shoot off to London at 10 AM. Sure enough, at 9:45 Monday morning, we received a message instructing us to call our Zone Leaders for travel plans. We did just that. The whole Zone congragated at Reading Station at 12:15 then we all took a direct train out of our mission to London Paddington. We then walked through London, explored Hyde Park (we took a Zone picture out of the mission... hahahaha), and met up below the Hyde Park chapel. I was then able to have a joyous reunion with my wonderful trainer (who I hadn't seen since he left Trowbridge), Elders Astle and Erickson (who I hadn't seen since the MTC... Elder Astle and I have lost 90 pounds between the two of us), and many others.

 

After about an hour of waiting, we went up and for ten minutes, Elder M. RUSSELL BALLARD OF THE QUORUM OF THE 12 addressed both the London and London South missions. Then, the London mision was dismissed (they had had most of their conference already) and we moved into the actual chapel. First, we heard from our Area President, Elder Texeira. He gave a wonderful presentation about how we needed to set higher goals and raise our visions. Then, Elder Ballard addressed us. He said we needed to "find more, teach more, baptize more, and reactivate more." He invited us to teach with greater simplicity and turn the balance of our missions over to the Lord. We then heard from Sister Millar and President Millar. President told us that several months ago, in the very building we were in, he was told that the work could explode in Europe... but if it did, it would need to start in the UK. If it was going to start in the UK, it needed to start in the London and London South missions. He then said "The gauntlet has been thrown down, do you accept that challenge?" With smiles on our face and our MTC experience a year prior fresh in our minds, Elder Grachyov, Elder Astle, and I looked at each other and said in unison "CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!" We all left the meeting fired up and ready to find, teach, and baptize.

 

Needless to day, yesterday was pretty awesome.

 

The work is going wonderfully here. Our investigators are all progressing again. The members are getting excited. We're getting excited. I had an amazing interview with President Millar last week. We are calling down miracles from on high on a daily basis.

 

I hit my year mark last Friday. That is strange. It's going by far too fast...

 

I love you all. I hope your week is half as wonderful as mine is going to be!

 

With love,

Elder Frederickson

 

PS The picture is me with my trainer- Elder von Allmen. It was so good to see him!

 

Six more weeks in Basingstoke!!!

Good morning everybody! Summer seems to have arrived in England! As such, I will need to buy some short-sleeved shirts. I will do that today. I hope everyone is doing wonderful. Things are good here.

 

As far as the work goes, it has been a wonderful week! It has had it's challenges, but then again... so does every week!

Our investigator is still wonderful. We'll be teaching him tomorrow and he should be coming to church on Sunday. He is still good for July 6th.

We have been able to commit our other investigator to another baptismal date. It's August 3rd, quite far away. Even if it's far away, for various reasons we know it's right. She continues to learn and grow. She loves knowledge and is curious. What a wonderful attribute that is! It is clear to me that as her testimony grows, her countenance changes. It is an amazing blessing to see that change in her.

We had an interesting experience yesterday with other investigator. We had planned to teach her Tithing and Fasting. Unfortunately, on our way to the appointment, we realized that I had forgotten to bring the Tithing and Fasting pamphlets. Unsure what to do, we just said a prayer and handed it over to the Holy Ghost. We knew that we couldn't do it on our own. We went in there, still not knowing what we would share. We had planned previously to extend a new baptismal date, but we also weren't sure if we were going to do that anymore. We got in there and they were playing monopoly so we waited a few minutes for them to finish up. We began the lesson and it was quite awkward. The only thing I could really compare it to is that video on the District where they have to do the emergency exchange and have no clue what they are doing. What happenned next, however, was amazing. Everything was calm. All of those contentious feelings were driven away in an instant. Were we still in the dark? Absolutely. Did we have a clue what we were going to teach? Nope. But we knew the Spirit was there. We knew that as long as we allowed the Spirit to speak through us, we could work miracles. For whatever reason, right after the opening prayer, my mind was drawn to that story in Preach My Gospel where they read 3 Nephi 11 and the guy decides then and there he wanted to be baptized, so we read 3 Nephi 11. Very slowly. We stopped every few verses and tried to put it in as simple terms as possible (because she has a really hard time understanding.) She understood just enough. When we finished, we weren't quite sure where to go. For reasons completely unbeknownst to me, I suggested we make her a baptismal calender. She agreed to this and agreed to work towards July 6th as a baptism date. The spirit was incredibly strong. I am so grateful that I could literally lose myself and allow the Holy Ghost to speak through me in a way that I could never have done on my own.

Elder Aichele and I have set a goal to "endure to the end" with our weekly goals. We want our weekly goals to actually matter, to be something we talk about and work towards daily. We found that the most efficient way to do this was taking a suggestion offered by a friend of mine serving his mission elsewhere. He suggested that we set key indicator goals BEFORE planning anything. This requires that we look back on our weekly objectives. It also requires us to be far more in tune with the spirit. It has been wonderful.

My biggest focus for this transfer is going to be to teach with simplicity. By the end of the transfer, I want to be able to teach and testify about every principle in the lessons in one minute or less. I'm going to have to be diligent about this- because following through on study plans is not something that comes easily to me. But I know I can do it! My other goal for the transfer is to be fearless. To boldly invite everyone I meet to come unto Christ. To have no reservations about inviting people to repent and be baptized. To put complete trust in my Savior. I know that as I do that, miracles will occur. Faith thins the veil, that is plainly taught in Ether 12.

I love this gospel and I love this marvelous work and wonder that I witness every day!

 

Love you all so much! :)

 

-Elder Frederickson

Dear people,

 

The time continues to fly here! It was so great to be able to Skype the damily yesterday :) seriously, it was the highlight of my day. So much fun. It was tempting, however, when other friends signed onto Skype! But I resisted hahaha. Today for P-Day we are going to do absolutely nothing. We will do some shopping. I will write a couple of letters. I will sleep. It will be wonderful. Zone conference last week was splendid. It was so much fun to see everyone from Portsmouth Zone and Staines Zone, I saw a lot of people who I haven't seen for a long time! Also if anyone (in Virginia) has letters to send to me, send them this week to my Basingstoke address and I will get them before moves :) if not, send them to the office.

 

Our baptismal dates our doing great. We committed our investigator to live the Law of Chastity and are trying really hard to get her to a baptismal service before we see her next Sunday. Whether she does or not, the Lord will take care of her, but we will keep trying. The spirit was really strong as we bore testimony that the Lord could help her conquer her fear of water. We love her so much and love seeing her progress. She is happier every visit! Her baptism is 12 days away now!

Our other baptism is also 12 days away. This week we saw him several times (each time with a member.) He is definitely changing for the better.  We think that his main concern about baptism is that he doesn't want a lot of people to be there. He doesn't want it to be a huge deal, I think the attention scares him a bit. We are going to prayerfully consider how to deal with this, because there is another baptism the same day. We are going to try and see him daily this week because we still have a lot of material to cover!
 

Our other investigator is amazing. She attended church yesterday and actively participated in the Gospel Principles lesson. We then taught her after church and reviewed the baptismal interview questions. It went really well! No question 4 issues. We scheduled a day for the interview and we just could not be more excited. She is SO prepared.

This week I've tried to apply something new in my study- writing it all down, being good about keeping a study journal. Whether it is personal study, at conferences, in church, I am just trying to always take notes. The results have been wonderful! My study is SO much more effective. The Spirit teaches me so much. I've found this to be especially the case in a situation when someone else is teaching and expounding upon the scriptures. I'll be taught more truths about what is being taught and I am able to understand it. I can feel a noticable increase in my knowledge. Not only that, but I am able to apply that knowledge FAR more effectively. It is having a massive impact on the way I work.

This week, Elder Aichele and I watched some of the Preach My Gospel DVDs in Companion Study (since we review the 12 Week Program.) We felt impressed that we really needed to begin finding through the ward. Not just asking them for referrals though, but actually working with them. Teaching them. Loving them. Doing all we can to get to know their friends. Capitalizing on the trust they clearly have in us. We also decided that we needed to work with Less-actives more. Going to there homes and getting to know them. I am certain that referrals will flow from this effort and baptisms and re-activations will occur. We are excited to see how all of this goes.

We will see miracles as we press forward in this marvelous work and wonder that we are priveledged to be a part of!

 

I love all of you so much and I feel your prayers.

 

With love,

Elder Frederickson

 

PS The picture is Elder Hagedorn (one of the Chinese Elders in Oxford) and I and the Great Hall from Harry Potter!

He Irons????

Good morning everybody :) I hope all is well. It is an absolutely gorgeous Bank Holiday Monday here in "Amazing-stoke." Today should be great. We are going to play some football and I am getting a BADLY needed haircut. I still have yet to pay for a haircut and I do not intend to. In other news, I bought some slim fit shirts past week and they are lovely. They are way comfy and A LOT easier to iron. Tonight we are going to Farnborough and doing a work-over with them and then staying the night, we'll catch the bus to Aldershot tomorrow morning then take a train to Staines for the Zone Conference. The alternative was waking up at like four and catching a train all the way to London then going back to Staines... it would've been awesome to go to London but it just wasn't rational. So yeah that is the agenda.

 

This week has been amazing! Although we weren't able to see our investigators as much as we would've liked, we were able to touch base with them and keep working. In all honesty, the place that the work is in right now isn't any different from last week. Well, it is, but it has just moved forward. Nothing exciting or crazy or (unusually) miraculous... but sometimes that is the way that it needs to be. Just solid, honest progression.

We have really been focusing on getting members on as many of our teaching appointments as possible. We want all of our lessons to be taught with a member present within reason. I've found that the key to accomplishing this goal is PERSISTENCE. To keep asking, to work around schedules, to be flexible... to just make things work out! I've realized that if we just do all we can, the Lord will sort our the rest. He'll provide those fellowshippers and friends. He'll pave the way. The Lord provides for His servants. Through faith and prayer, we were able to get a member to accompany us on every single appointment this week, except for two, but those two were with the same person and with more effort on our parts we could've had a member there. We now have a twice-a-week standing appointment with him and a members home to do a mini-PMG class. We're really excited about that. We've prayed a lot and we think that it's the best thing for him.

I think the biggest miracles of the week was when we taught our investigator on Sunday evening. All week he's had a hard time meeting with us because of his coursework (but apparently that's all done now so hopefully it won't be an issue.) He's really prepared for his baptism, which is now only three weeks away! We were planning on reviewing the Restoration with him, but he asked us what we could and could not drink. Obviously, we knew that we needed to teach the Word of Wisdom (which is what we thought his main concern would be.) In a moment when, I admit, I was internally freaking out, he walked over to the cabinet above the TV, GRINNED and said "Can I drink thiiiiiiis?" and opened the cabinet to reveal a whole range of alcoholic beverages. We bluntly told him "no." to which he replied that we were right, that we shouldn't drink that. He said he was "testing" us. Apparently it is all his dads. What a relief! The rest of the Word of Wisdom was received well. He even said that it was "easy" because those are all of the things he doesn't like anyways. No complaints there! His only concern was the promised blessings of walking without fainting and running without being weary. He claims that it gives unfair advantage in athletic contests and that it's dishonest to cheat. We were able to talk him through it though and now he understands it. He's a star!

We are making finding a big part of our daily proselyting efforts and I think that is why the number of lessons we are teaching has gone down. That's okay though! Nothing happens in missionary work until we find people to teach! So we just need to stick to it. It's not easy. It's a lot easier to beat a dead horse, to stop by the same people week after week with no results. We are here to teach seekers, to find the elect, not to just find a couple of people and chat with them for numbers. Granted, when the mission pushes for numbers (because they represent people) it can be tempting to fall into that trap. Being the competitive person that I am, I have fallen prey to that sinful mindset before. But we can overcome it! I know it! The Lord always provides a way to overcome temptations. I've seen it many times throughout my mission thus far. What a blessing it is to be doing the Lord's work, to know that if we simply follow the rules, the Spirit, and the Scriptures, we will become His mouthpiece. Truly, this is such an incredible privilege.

One particular Biblical character that I gained greater respect for throughout my studies this week was Joseph (the Joseph in Egypt!) With some help from a BYU Old Testament manual that was in our flat, I was able to understand what made him so special, what made him so great. It was his optimism! One would think that he was dealt with the worst hand. He was sold into slavery by his brothers, he was falsely accused of terrible crimes, he spent years in jail in a foreign land, most people back home thought he was dead... yet he made the most of it. Not only did he smile through it, he took these terrible situations and made the most of them. Through his persistent reliance on the Lord, he didn't just overcome the trials, he took the trials and made them... well, not trials! :) Would I do the same? That is the question that I ask myself. When trials come (and obviously they do) how am I going to react? That is a decision I can make now! I can follow Josephs example and make the most of them. With the Lord, all situations we are in can be for our benefit. Otherwise, He wouldn't put us in that situation!

 

I love you all so much! I hope that things are wonderful no matter where in this world you might be! Soon, this email will be going to someone on every single continent (except Antarctica) and I think that is awesome. You guys are awesome.

 

With love,

Elder Frederickson