Transferred to York!

Some of you may watch the weather forecast for over here... Tuesday, Wednesday,

Thursday and Friday, all beautiful days. I busted the short sleeves out.  I'm working on getting my tan back because my arms haven't seen the sun since September haha

Also random note. Our flat is around the corner from a bike shop :) It's a trek dealer!! Had some beauties in there :) York is a very, very popular place. I've met more Americans this past week than the rest of my mission combined... LEAH AND BRIAN, I met a cool couple (rednecks) who live just outside Price Utah. They do all their shopping in Price and are even on YSA assignment in Price!! I can't remember their names, but still. Tender mercies :)

York is a wealthy city and very nice place to live. There's plenty of shopping and lots of places to go out for food :). This shipping container will be an outdoor/indoor food market with little hipster shops. Should be really cool when done! It's multi level all built from containers. 

Cool graffiti art. Stay tuned for pics when finished

Anyways, I'll share about my new companion, my new area, my week.  All the goods. 

May companion is Elder Alexander Pitcher from....Utah! Syracuse to be more specific. He has been out 3 months less than me.... he's special because he spent 9 weeks at the the Provo MTC learning Mandarin Chinese. 

My area is officially called York 2. There are 3 Mandarin elders. Haha it's a gooder. The area is the west side of York and goes all the way to the border of Beverley (my first area!) idk what the ward is like because we had stake conference on Sunday. The stake itself reminds me of Utah, lots of younger families :) I'm excited. We share the area with the zone leaders (Elder Walker and Elder Lyman).  Unfortunately we don't live with them... in our area we have not 1 but 2 universities! SO MANY UNIVERSITY STUDENTS. So this is where my experience runs a little dry. I have never been in a uni area so it's all so new for me!! Finding people to teach requires different approaches and new plans.  It's so exciting!! We get the city center in our area which is always pretty busy. Lots of people!! 

My week was very different.  Elder Pitcher has only been here 4 weeks. He was doing 100% Mandarin work which means he doesn't know anything about the ward or area... all of the Chinese people he was teaching have moved to the zone leaders. This all means we are pretty much whitewashing! Or area booking. It's a challenge but fun! 

Tuesday I just got settled and then we went out trying to find people. Weren't too successful. Wednesday was super roasting! We had district council, which went ok. Then we did some service in a nearby park. It was good to change things up. We did some more finding and then institute with a recent convert in the evening. It was good! There are about a dozen YSA so that was a good time! Thursday was a long day. We had a crazy meal appointment with the other elders at a member's house. There was so much going on and so much banter haha Saturday was the longest day of my life! Nice and warm but spent the entire day finding. We did 19.1 kilometres of walking 29,000 steps. We met 2 really cool people. A lass who was so very nice to us.  She grew up going to church but life got busy so she stopped going. We promised her that she will be able to recognize answers to her prayers as she meets with us. Looking forward to it. Then later that night, in the final stretch of the day we met Xander. He was like are you lds?? Next thing we were sitting in his house with his roommates running around drinking some water explaining what we do and why. Super good. We are going out for a meal with him when his Mormon friend from down south is visiting! 

 

Yous already heard about church this week. We saw President and Sister Turvey. We spent some time at a YSA activity after with some Chinese friends. Some of you may know that President Spackman has a son who lived in York for a while. So I met a lad who was bffs with them.  He went to Calgary to visit and spent ages there and even went to Waterton! Holla. He said it's his fav place in the world 🌎 

Anyways fam it's been a radical week! 

Big things are coming :) Miracles are real peeps. 

Saturday I was really worried cuz we had the entire day to find. It's tough in the mind sometimes. Well God knows us personally because I saw and met my first fly fisherman in England. He was (just practicing) but we still watched him and chatted about all sorts. He actually used to live in Keighley area. He told of some good fly shops to go to. I'm excited! 

Love,

Elder Pilling 

Sent from the land of lads