London Calling: 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!!