Cheerio Chichester! (Oct. 25, 2010)

hiya, ya alright? that's how they greet each other here. its hilarious and I'm starting to do it now haha I love it so much here. I'm always cold though, I only get warm when I go to bed. I finally got to experience my first fish and chips :) there is a place right by our flat and the people there love the missionaries so they give tons of food to us for way cheap prices. it was so good! How is everyone doing? thanks for all the letters:) I love hearing from everyone and it sounds like you're all doing great. luckily I can print off emails when I get them so I can just read them later. life is so good here. I love this work so so much. you just feel good all of the time. even when it gets hard and you're contacting people all day and no one wants to talk to you all day by the end you still see miracles. I've seen so many this week. my comp and I write down a miracle of the day every day. even when people don'e want to talk to us we try and make sure we at least leave them with something so we have a goal of giving out 25 pass a long cards a day. my comp is obssessed with it cause 3 or 4 out of every 100 pass a long cards someone will get baptized so we at least leave them with that if nothing else. we gave out like 47 the other day, it was great. but obviously the most important thing is to give out BOMs not pass a long cards. we've done a pretty good job of that too. we're working hard and it's paying off. earlier this week we gave away two within 5 minutes of each other and we taught both these people. we set up an appointment with one of them for yesterday but he didn't show which was heart breaking but everyone has their free agency which is something you have to remind yourself of everyday. you can tell when people are ready to recieve the gospel but its up to them to accept it or not. it's so hard when they say no. we talked to this guy last night. Anthony. he is amazing! we stopped him and ended up teaching him about faith and prayer and our heavenly father and he was so interested in it and we even got him to say a prayer when we finished teaching him. we are meeting with him again later this week and I am so excited to teach him more because he is golden. he was so excited to go home and read the book of mormon that night. it was the best feeling in the world!! we didn't have any luck with anyone the rest of the day but just meeting with him was a miracle and I couldn't have asked for more.

 the ward here is TINY! there were only like 60 people at church yesterday. I couldn't believe it but I guess that's what happens when you're not in Utah anymore. the people here are amazing! the ward is so great, it's amazing to me how much faith these people show. we had 4 investigators at church on sunday. these two girls emma and laura came. they are both 20 and they've been coming to church for about a month and a half now. they walk 45 minutes to get to the church. its amazing that two young girls are willing to do that and come to church and there is no one else there age but they love it and they come anyway. this week we asked them if they would get baptized and they said yes!! they are both getting baptized on Nov. 20 and I can't wait to see it! they are both really excited. they had a little slip up with drinking this week but they are doing well. they really regreted it and you can tell that they are trying so hard. they are amazing girls.

  there is nothing like missionary work. you pray like 30 times a day and you pray in the middle of a park or a sidewalk and with people you just met who have never prayed before but it's totally normal when we do it. we prayed in a hospital cafe yesterday and you don't even think about all the people that are around. I am so grateful for prayer. it has really helped me this week, my prayers keep getting longer and longer.

  something else I love about being a missionary is that I get to spend 2 hours just reading the bom and studying everyday. I've never had so much time to be able to do this and I've never loved it so much. I learn so much each day, I've also started reading the new testament and it's amazing. there's so much that can apply to your life when your looking for it. a scripture that really helped me this week is from d&c 121:7-9. thine adversities are but a small moment. there have been times when I've been tired or you get discouraged cause it's not easy to find people but as long as you stay faithful the lord will help you get through it and you will see miracles. I've seen so many. I'll be honest. I've had a hard time this week. I love the work and I am so happy here but I've had some real problems with my knees. they are really hurting me and it's getting to the point where it's affecting my missionary work because I can barely walk. the doctor gave me some exercises to do but they haven't been too affective yet, hopefully it will soon. he also told us to walk slower but that is so frustrating for me cause I feel like I'm not doing my best if I'm walking crazy slow. I just need to be patient but it's been really hard. I'm in a lot of pain. I told our bishop and asked if he could give me a blessing sometime and I think he's gonna come over sometime today with some members and do that for me. I can't even walk around the flat very well. can you pray for me back at home? it's been so frustrating for me cause its not getting better and it's starting to limit me. luckily its pday so I've been able to rest a little but it's been pretty bad. so just pray for me!!!

 I love all of ya and I hope you are doing great back at home. I love it here, the people are so great and things with my comp are good too. she's a really great missionary, her english is awesome too. I'm trying to get her to teach me hymns in hungarian but its hard haha. I love all of ya so much!!! thanks for the letters and the support. take my puppy for a walk today :) love you!

  love, sis gregson

ps. I attached some pics. some are from the mtc with my district and some are from the church history tour, one is in front of pres hinckley's old flat he lived in on his mish! I think I attached one of me and my comp as well.  loves!!

Sister Gregson with MTC District at Preston, England Temple

River Ribble

Sister Gregson and MTC Dstrict on bridge over River Ribble

Flat where President Hinckley lived as a missionary

British Cell Phone

Sister Gregson and Trainer

First Fish and Chips meal

A Little Lesson on Chichester

Chichester is a lovely little city about 50 miles South of London.  As you can see from the map Chichester is right near the coast, and as such, relies on it for much of its economy.  There are a number of marinas that draw many tourists.  The Northshore shipyard is where many fishing boats and sailing yachts are built.

Built nearly 900 years ago, the Chichester Cathedral is an important architectural and spiritual landmark.  The cathedral has become famous for its collection of modern art.  Famous artists such as Chagall, Piper, and Sutherland, have been commissioned to infuse a feeling of serenity and draw the visitor's thoughts to divinity.

England is known for its beautiful gardens, and Chichester is not excluded from this.  West Dean Gardens has offered an outdoor sanctuary since 1622.  The garden spans 90 acres and brings in many tourists throughout the year.

As always, if you're looking for more info on Chichester, Wikipedia is a great start.  See also the the main city website.  Sister Gregson has been placed in a very beautiful spot to begin her work as a missionary.

Welcome to Chichester (Oct. 19, 2010)

hullo!! I made it to london south:) just emailing you real quick to tell you I'm here. President Shamo is so awesome, he's fun and energetic and so excited about missionary work and sister Shamo is the tiniest cutest lady ever and her knowledge of the scirptures is so admirable. My new companion is ....... SISTER BOLESKA! she is from hungary and she is great. I love her already. it seems like she is a really hard worker and so I'm excited to have her as a trainer. we've just been doing street contacting and she's such a natural and I hope to learn a lot from her while I'm with her. My first area is Chichester. it is so beautiful here and I love it here. my comp said we have about three people here that will be getting baptized hopefully within the next few weeks!! I can't wait to see this work in action finally :) we're about to go over to this woman's house who just got baptized on saturday and we're teaching her about the preisthood. I'm really excited to meet her!! anyway, I gotta go but I hope you're all doing great!! I love all of you so so so much. this gospel is amazing. I love studying the scirptures, I've been learning new things every single day and if I could I would spend all my time studying. it's amazing how this gospel blesses your life. I love all of you and I miss ya but I'm loving my mission! It's going great so far! love ya! cheers!

   love, chelsea

Preston MTC (Oct. 13, 2010)

oh baby! i don't even know where to begin. in my journal I wrote down things throughout the week that I wanted to tell all of you. there's so much!! how is everyone? I miss all of you but it is so great here in England. I love it. the weather has even been pretty nice. probably wont last long though. it has been a great week here. we finally got to watch all of conference. it took a week and a half but we finally watched everything. it was so good!! I loved it! It was weird not watching it with the fam though. I missed that, and the egg mcmuffins:)

   on friday i got a taste of what missionary work is like outside of the MTC. they took us to Manchester in the middle of this giant shopping area outside w a park and they gave us Book of Mormons and pass along cards and let us loose. it was so much fun!! I loved it! we talked to a lady and her sister on the train ride there. Her name is Cathy, her sister is a member and got baptized a few years ago. she still reads the BoM but doesn't go to church cause there isn't one close to her. Cathy wasn't interested in the church at all cause she is part of the church of england and didn't even want to hear anything. she was super nice and way cool. we talked for about 40 minutes and eventually told her about Joseph Smith and then we asked her if she would read the bom and I thought for sure she would say no but she took it and said she'd read it. we got all her info too so hopefully things will work out. right after that my comp and I talked to this guy, Daren. he is dynamite. we walked right up to him and it took him off gaurd. he was pretty startled and kinda jumped away but we talked to him for a really long time. he's a soldier and going to iraq soon but he said he wanted to hear more. he took a bom and we got his info too! those two people were amazing!! afte that it got a lot harder and not everyone would talk to us. we'd walk up to some people and say hi and they would act like we weren't standing right in front of them. it was sometimes a little scary to walk right up to people but I loved it overall. it was an amazing experience. my comp and i gave out 5 bom's and tons of pass along cards and we got a lot of numbers too. it was so cool. I loved it, there were times where i would bear my testimony and the spirit was so overwhelming and you would just wonder if the person was feeling any of it. this friday we get to go knock on doors! I'm so excited:)

  I feel like I'm so busy all the time and there isn't enough time to accomplish everything I want to do in my personal study time so my comp and i started waking up half an hour early so we could have extra time. it has been so good for me because I get a lot more done. I was reading our search for happiness one morning and it is such an amazing book. I love it so much. You need t read chapter 6. its on god's eternal plan. it is killer. I was thinking about dad the entire time I was reading it. you get so much more of an outlook on life when you are out in the missionfield studying the gospel all of the time. i feel like I have learned so much and my testimony has built up so much more. last night in class we read alma chp 17 and 18 and its about ammon. he is a rockin missionary. we looked for attributes he has that we want to develop in ourselves and there were so many things. humble, bold, fearless, thankful, knows the scriptures...so many things. He devoted his life to serving the lord. in the MTC we keep talking about how we need to keep both feet in the missionfield and I feel like I really have been. i think about home and i miss everyone but I love it here and I know it's where I am supposed to be. I know it. it feels so right and I feel so good here. I've had a hard time this week a little just because I want to be the best missionary I can be, I want to come home with no regrets but I just feel like I don't know how to do that. I know I can't be perfect but i just want to be so good and work so hard. it's like you just feel so bad whenever you mess up out here. it's intimidating but I can tell I'm improving a lot. we do role plays all day every day. the first time we did it I did pretty bad but I've gotten a lot better. we did one last night and even though it was a role play I felt guided by the spirit and I just felt like it went so well. the role play was with this guy who had taken lessons and gone to church and had even set a baptizm date but then his catholic fam got in the way and tried to persuade him not to join and the sister was even in the role play which made it even harder but the my comp and I focused on the bom. he said he believed it and Joseph Smith and so we bore our testimony and told him its true and it was just so powerful. all the right things were said. even though it was a role play it was still just so amazing. I loved it!

 we took a church history tour today. got to see where the first baptisms were in england. england is such a beautiful place!!!!! It's amazing. we also got to see where pres hinckley lived when he was first serving and when he got the letter from his dad that said forget yourself. it was cool to see all those places :)

 my time is up but I love all of you so much!!! I hope you are doing well. thank you so much for the letters, I feel so popular:) you are amazing!! Love you!

 love chels

First Letter! (Oct. 6, 2010)

MOM!!! and fam :)

   first off tell mel and mark I saw the pics of Emma. oh she is soo cute!!! I can't believe it! lots of hair! ohh man. I have half an hour and I don't even know where to begin. I don't even have time to read your letters yet cause i just want to write everything I can first. My mission experience so far has been crazy but I love it! I love being a missionary. It is so fun, you are tired ALL the time but you feel so so good :) I feel great, I love this so much. of course I miss all of you and my friends and home and londyn (how is londyn?) but I just feel awesome always. it is the best. ok... differences between Provo MTC and Preston MTC. Provo...the day I went in to the MTC there were 450 missionaries who went in the same day. my first day in the preston MTC I arrived with 26 other missionaries. provo has about 2500 missionaries right now. preston has..... 26 missionaries :) Its so small!!! provo was like a mini campus but this is like... I don't know, it's just so small!! I can't believe it but I love it!! all the elders and sisters here are so awesome. (btw I am here till the 18 and packages can only be sent to the mish home) I love the people here. you get to know everyone so well. my comp is awesome. she's from sweden, she is the quietest person I have ever met and I was really worried about it at first but I'm breaking her out of her shell:) she is gorgeous and she's really smart. I like her a lot and we're getting to know each other really well. i feel like I've been here forever but it's only been like 4 days or something. i don't even know... the days are so long but so short at the same time. there is one sister here who is a little off the wall but I'm trying to love her. she's just kind of a really loud ditz. that's the only way i can describe her but she knows her scriptures really well and she's way nice. I just need to love her and see the positive. she's one of my roomies so I gotta just laugh at her most the time. I have officially been called as the coordinating sister!! yeah! this means that I'm basically the leader of the pack of girls here and they do what I say. which isn't much cause I'm not that demanding. its fun though, I get to go to meetings with the MTC pres and all the DLs, there's only three districts here. we just talk about all of the companionships and how we can help people and stuff. its a pretty big deal. yep. haha not. but its way fun!

    I always feel SOOO busy and there's so much I have to get done but I feel like I don't have time to. I want to read the BOM and all the mission books and study PMG and all these different things but we only have 1 hour a day for personal study and then its just classes and stuff all day so i just need to figure out how to use my time wisely I guess. crap only 15 minutes!! this goes by way too fast. let's see. we went to the temple today. it was awesome! I love the temple. the movie they had is the same one they play in the draper temple so it was a little taste of home haha it was so good to be there. there was a sister and an elder who went through for the first time because they don't have temples near them at all. it was really neat. I have so much to tell you but I have nothing to say. its just crazy here. I love it. the food is good. the exercise room is just a roped off area of the cafeteria haha it is so funny. all it contains is a tredmill and a stationary bike. and there's yoga pads too. I love it here though.

   anyway, at night, as coordinating sister i am in charge of holding a small devotional in our rooms at night where someone shares a thought and a scripture and we sing hymns. at the end of it we all kneel down in a circle and say a prayer and guess what I make them do every night :) we do our 'sure love ya' thing.(i don't know what you would call it... our cheer?) they love it!! its so cool when 11 of us do it together.

   I have learned so much here. I think you and the fam should start studying Preach my Gospel together. it is so amazing. you can spend an hour on one paragraph just studying it and finding scriptures. we have class all day and I've already used up a lot of my journal cause your always learning new things. last night we had a small lesson on going to the temple and all of the symbolism it has and then we incorporated it into other symbolisms in the church like sacrament. we break the bread cause it represents christs broken body. we cover it with cloth that represents the cloth that covered him in the tomb. the discussions we have here are just so interesting and really get you thinking.

     on Friday they are taking us out and we are going to be contacting for like 4 hours that day. they'll take us on a train and drop us off somewhere and we'll just talk to people and try and get their info!! I am so excited! I can't wait. it'll be a little scary but I think it will be fun. :) the other day we did a role play of going to an investigators house for the first time and instead of just bombarding them with doctrine you're supposed to just get to know them. that's all. see what they need. I never thought about that before. it is so important to get to know the people you are teaching. anyway I have 30 seconds so i gotta go. I love you so so so much!!! hope all is well :) talk to you soon

   love chels