"...And out of small things proceedeth that which is great.": Tacos, obesity and bright ideas!

What a week! We are working hard.....and harder....and then some! And yet I still love being a missionary!

Finding vs. Football:

Fact. Trying to go finding during the football semi-final (Wigan vs. Arsenal) is ridiculous! Every transfer we have something called 4 hour finding. If the name doesn't tell all, it is where we spent at least 4 hours on a Saturday doing finding activities--trying to find new people to teach. I joke that 4 hour finding is nothing special for me-- with the tougher areas I've served in, every day is 4 hour finding (or 6....or 8....).

Lucky for us, it was 4 hour finding......AND Wigan vs. Arsenal. FAIL! I have never seen so many drunk people at 11am in my life!

Highlight:

Drunk Airguitar Man:

In a nutshell, picture a 65ish year old man, covered in blue warpaint singing rock music and "air-guitaring" (yes...I have now officially invented a new verb!) all up and down high street! No shame! Got to love intoxicated people! Never a dull moment!

Dignified Dares:

So our district is doing this new challenge where we have to give our companions one "dignified" dare per day (have to emphasize the word dignified, or else we missionaries sometimes get a little to excited/crazy and do stuff that could embarrass the church or our companion etc. But lets be honest! I am embarrassing about 99% of the time with all my lame jokes anyways, so it would be nothing new for our companionship).

Sister P dared me to start all our conversations on the street with a joke. So I decided to make up a European/Canadian twist to a classic, ultra-lame joke.

What is a pirates favourite letter? Arrgggggg (R).

What is an English pirates favourite letter? Ayeeeeeee (I)

What is a Canadian pirates favourite letter? Ehhhhhh (A)

As terrible as my jokes were, surprisingly they worked! I managed to end up giving away a BOM and teach a lesson from the conversations that started with that joke! And the ultimate win? I put a lot of smiles on peoples' faces (not quite sure if they were laughing at me or with me, but lets just go with the latter!).

I saw an obese pigeon:

I am in England, beholding daily some the most beautiful and historical places in the world, and that is the news I have to share this week? Yup! Pretty much!

Small things excite missionaries! We were sitting in the bus station and I saw the fattest pigeon my eyes have ever beheld! It could barely walk! Safe to say, it must get fed a lot by people at the station! I would compare it to the Mattie's fat cat, except it is a pigeon, not a cat!

I saw a zebra (pronounced the English way) pigeon:
Crikey! What's that?! This is bird watching on a whole new level! No joke, at the bus station (again) I saw a pigeon with zebra stripes! Intense! I know!

My chortle of the week!

We had a zone meeting and in preparing for 4 hour finding, they were reading out a list of new finding approaches for us to try out if we wanted to. One of the suggestions was to use your companion to start conversations (e.g. "Hey! She's from Tonga!....or "Hey! Try and guess where she is from!"). One my favourite sarcastic sister in my zone, who was sitting next to me whispers: "Hi! This is my companion and she is a ginger and she actually does have a soul! Do you?"

Well safe to say I was in tears laughing! Clever! I always wondered where that whole "gingers have no soul" thing started! Likely on facebook! Funniest line of the week in my books!

Little Mexico....in Wigan??:

So I was in a weird/funny mood the other night (when am I ever not?) during Sister P's language study! I was unpacking my things and found a case of fake stick-on mustaches that I got as a gag gift for Christmas. As I was holding them, I noticed out of the corner of my eye my England flag cowboy hat (only cost me like 13p!! Seriously! Cannot beat prices like that!!!).

Not to anyone's surprise I'm sure, 2 seconds later I was down the stairs with a fake moustache, donning my cowboy hat! Sister P was in tears laughing! It didn't take her long to stick one on, stick another moustache on to create a unibrow, and put my other hat on. We were being silly and were in fits laughing when suddenly I had a bright idea! I noticed a box of taco shells on our shelf, and happened to know that we had onions and peppers in the fridge! MEXICAN PHOTO SHOOT! Tongan/Canadian style!

That is not where our story ends though! The next day we were waiting at the bus stop. To practice English, Sister P often reads the bus stop ads and asks me what certain words mean. Well.....this ad happened to be a "stop hate crimes" ad. It was talking about saying no to discrimination, racism, etc. Sister P innocently was asking me: "What does racism, discrimination etc. mean?". All I did was take out my camera and jokingly show her our Mexico pictures! And then I went on to actually define what a hate crime was! Oh the irony of life!

A week of bright ideas!:

I was changing lightbulbs last week and had a spare lightbulb sitting on my study desk! My new favourite thing of the week is to stick the lightbulb over my head when I get a bright idea! We'll see how long it takes before Sister P stops finding it hilarious and is ready to punch my lights out! ;)

Beatboxing in Britain:

There is a village in Wigan called Ince. Every time I say it out loud, I HAVE to start beat-boxing! Ince-ince-ince!! It's too hard to resist the urge! Sister P started learning how to beat-box this week! We will soon be the most fly companionship on the island!

Dazzeling door-knockers!:

When you dedicate 18 months of your life to knocking hundreds of doors and talking to random people on the street all day, you cannot help after awhile but to compare peoples doors (the type of wood, doorknockers, door-bells etc.! It is exciting for us! Keeps things fresh). We came across a fox- door knocker the other day (as in the animal!). The people weren't home, but we ended up spending 7 mins at the door making the door knocker talk: "Let me in! Let me in! I wanna be baptized...etc. etc.".

Probably safe to say I may have hit an all-time low! But at least I'm happy! With that, you'll have to excuse me while I start running! The people with straight-jackets are coming after me! ;) Gotta split!

Love you all!!!

Hope the time goes quickly for you and slowly for me!

Xoxoxoxoxo Sister Martin