This week was crazy. We had moves as you know and my new companion is great.
Elder Bright has so much faith and we have already seen some great things happen in our area. He is 22 and from South Jordan Utah. He is from my MTC group as well. I have enjoyed serving with him so far.
The crazy part of our week started on Elder Bright and I's trip home from London Wednesday. I was driving our new car down the motorway minding my own business when suddenly in my rear view mirror I saw a motorcycle cop coming up fast. I figured he was just trying to get past so I started to move over for him but then I realized he was after us. I promptly exited the motorway and pulled up to a roundabout when he pulled up next to us and said to follow him. He escorted us to a truck stop where we were soon surrounded by a concourse of Essex Police officers. At this point I had no idea why we were being stopped. We pulled up into a stall that they had directed us towards and patiently waited. I asked a few of the officers around what was going on but I wasn't getting anything. Soon an officer came up to us and informed us that our number plate had been scanned and it came up that we had no insurance. That is a miracle because you have to pay the road tax to get a number plate but to pay the road tax you need valid insurance. Somehow we had no insurance.
Eventually the police discerned that we were from the United States (it must have been the way we were speaking) and we had to get checked out by immigration. Whilst all this was taking place we were on the phone with the mission office. They weren't thrilled with the situation. Everyone was doing all these checks on computers to see if we had insurance and nothing was coming up. In the mean time Elder Bright and I were having a laugh. Then a news reporter from BBC came up and interviewed us. Imagine the headlines in the papers.... lol. The funniest part about the reported was her name was Samantha Dalton. Awkward.... anyway, once it came down to it the car didn't have insurance and that merited immediate seizure of our car by the police. Not what we wanted to hear. We promptly unloaded Elder Bright's luggage and called another companionship in our zone to come get us. Up to that point I had no idea where we were so the police were kind enough to tell us. While we waited we realized we left the sat nav in the car so we went back to get it. They let us in the car to get it and we resumed waiting. Then I had a stroke of genius and realized we left our flat keys in the car too. I wasn't about to be car-less and homeless so we went back a second time. I got the key out and was handing the car keys back to the officer when she asked. "are you sure that is everything?" In response I said, "Yes, unless you want to give us the car back....." she didn't find that very funny but Elder Bright and the reporters were rolling. Well to cut a long story short the car was gone and we had to have someone from the office help us get it back from the impound this week. The car is back in our hands and insured now so life is good.
That was a terribly long story just to sum up about three hours worth of events in our week. The rest of the week we just worked our tails off and are finding new people to teach. We are excited to go to London tomorrow to meet with Elder Cook. We were told that the church is rolling out a new initiative for Christmas so we are having a meeting about that afterwards. Sounds like a new website, video, and pass along cards for Christmas. That is leaked info so naturally everyone knows. It will be similar to what was done at Easter with the "Because of Him" video. This next week we have MLC as well so we'll be in London twice. I love going to London. It is a great place.
Well that has been our week. I love you all and hope you have a great thanksgiving!!!
Love,
