Bird fights, church bells and badly timed background music!

Bank holiday= limited email time so I'll just jump right into it!

How to kill time during long district phone calls 101:

So we have a keyboard in our flat (the concept is that I can practice during Sis. P's language study so I can play on Sundays for the ward.....we'll see how well that goes considering that I'm rubbish at reading music) and our DL likes to talk a lot. He was struggling to find a scripture that he wanted to share and there was the longest awkward silence ever...so what did I do?  ....Started playing the jeopardy theme song on the keyboard....obviously!! Perfect song for awkward moments!

That awkward moment when.....

So we were teaching English to a lady on my exchange in Liverpool. There was a word scramble activity in her workbook. All the words were names of famous countries. We were doing fine until the very last one. We were going crazy! No one could figure it out! I can now tell you that it is extremely awkward when you are supposed to be the English teachers and neither of you can figure out the answer to a word scramble that is designed for a 7 year old.

Suddenly 10 minutes later I figured it out.....the word was?:

England

......duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!! I haven't felt that dumb in a while! So ironic it hurts!!!

The most racist zone phone call of the year goes to..........LIVERPOOL ZONE:
Once a week we have a zone phone call where the zone leaders pick 5 random missionaries to ask a ridiculous question to. At the end we then get to ask them as many questions as we want. As you could probably guess, the questions get absolutely awkward and crazy! We have a Swedish zone leader (blonde hair, blue eyes....as white and European as you can get) and a black zone leader from London. My favourite questions of the night:

Question posed to our English ZL: Are you related to Bill Cosby?

Question to a German sister: Would you rather be white and Swedish or black and British?

Question to English ZL: If you could change one thing about your companion what would it be?

Answer: I would make him black so we could have more in common!

Question to English ZL: If you had to pick 4 people in the mission to form a black acapella singing group, who would you pick and why?

Answer: Elder F because he likes jazz ..............hmmmmmmmmm (lots of thought and debating)

OH OH Sister Martin! Because she can rap like 50 cent!

My summary of my exchange in Liverpool:

A member was asking me what I thought of my exchange in Liverpool! I managed to carve it down into one summary power-statement:

The people were lovely, the accent was confusing and the weather was alright!

True story! Weirdest accent ever, but they are seriously the friendliest people I have met on my entire mission! If I ever moved back to England, I honestly could say that I would love to live near Liverpool, just because of the beaches and the nice people!

Weird things that missionaries ponder about:

Our deep thought of the week just before bedtime:

What would you do if your last name was elder and you went on a mission? Sister Elder?!

No one claimed that missionaries were the brightest lot in the world! And I prove this to be true everyday!

The simple pleasures of life:

What happens when you take all technology away from 20-something year olds?

We were in fits laughing the other day! Why? We were watching two birds fighting! No joke! It is the funniest thing ever! They were pecking each other and hopping around and making the most hilarious angry "squawking" noises ever! If you're ever having a bad day, just go to the beach and watch a bird fight!

Funny? Or depressing? I still can't decide which one....

Sis P and I walking to a tea appointment on Sunday. We walked by a church and there were tons of people outside it. Sis. P innocently commented:

"Oh wow! It's so nice to see that there are still people going to church!"

Me: ".....they're not going to church.....it's a wedding!"

I could tell by their dresses and all the alcohol glasses that they were coming out of a wedding and heading off to a reception. Poor Sis. P wasn't familiar enough with the culture to know that and honestly thought there was a packed church on a Sunday! We burst out in depressed laughter! True story: English people only show up to church for Christenings (baptisms), weddings and funerals. End of story!

Bus station highlight of the week:

In England, every Sat night and Sunday morning the church bells ring non-stop like crazy for 1-2 hours. The tradition is that the church bells are rung to call people to come to church. They were extra annoying/long and there was more than one church doing it at the same time the other day and a 80-something year old lady finally burst out at the bus stop:

"That's enough God, we hear you already!"

I semi-agree sadly enough! The bells drive you mad after a while!

Anyways, that's all the time I have this week folks! Bank holidays are lovely, but they mean shorter email time!

Love you all!

Hope the time goes quickly for you and slowly for me!
Sister Martin xoxo