It's been a while....

 Oh goodness how time flies when you are in the routine of mission life! The weeks just fly by SOOO fast ! 

November highlights: We had a special Relief Society "Devotional" where Sis Kristen Yee of the General Relief Society presidency was here in England, so we were able to drive up to Bristol for that. It was a great evening and our cute Sister Missionaries were able to get a picture with her!  The Sis on the far left is from Pakistan, the sister in the purple "jumper" is from kiribati and the tallest Sister is from Fiji. It was one of their biggest mission highlights, to meet a leader from Salt Lake City.

We were also able to celebrate a 'kind of American' Thanksgiving lunch, after having our one of our District Council meetings.  I couldn't find a turkey so we ended up with marinated chicken with our mashed potatoes, carrots and a "real" salad with real Ranch dressing (you can't find good salad dressing over here, thus no one eats salad!)  We served 7 Americans, 1 Canadian, and then our 3 cute sisters as listed above. Although it wasn't our traditional Thanksgiving day, it was still a great day of being grateful for many things! 

playing a card game called Goat Lords after lunch

We also attended a "carnival" parade over here. The next town over, called Bridgewater, is supposed to be famous for their Carnival parade. We hear you are not to call them "floats" but the parade is of "carts". We have never seen anything like it in our lives. First off - the parade happens at night and reminded us of a christmas light parade times 10,000 !  The "clubs" or organizations that sponser a "cart", spend all year planning and building their "cart". Every "cart" has at least 2-3 trailers completely lit up from top to bottom, front to back !  Its a contest and I guess money is given to the winner, but they also have rules where the clubs have to give back & donate to their communities as well.  It was amazing - we stood out in the cold for about 1.5 hours to watch about 20 -30 min of the parade before we had to leave so the elders could get home. Here is just a little sample: 

December highlights so far: Its tried to snow here once or twice. It never sticks to the ground but it is sure exciting for all the missionaries who have never seen snow ! 

We had our Christmas Zone conference with fun white elephants exchange, games & "santa" (our mission president) followed by lunch and a spiritual christmas devotional. We will have lots of time to fill in the coming weeks as the missionaries have been given christmas eve, christmas day and boxing day all as "pdays". We have also been given New Years eve and New Years Day as pdays as well. So ward members are starting to put together plans to get the missionaries entertained and busy during those days. 

Pres. Santa Mayall & Sis. Mrs. Clause Mayall

Serving up all the young missionaries drinks for them! 

MISSIONARY WORK: 

Our "friend" updates - We continue to work with our "Suit" friend Sian. We all have each others phone numbers now and are communicating regularly to try to meet up for "lemonade" (since she is giving up coffee). We also invited her to our ward Christmas party, she was working, BUT she also asked to be invited to our next activity (which may be karaoke!). 

Elder Hanks taking on the Catus Pinata at the ward party! 

We recently had a neighbor knock on our door looking for a lost package. We ended up inviting her into our flat because it was so cold out and because we had started to talk about why she has a copy of the Book of Mormon! (Sister missionaries from years ago had befriended her and had given her a copy) We got her number and had her come over about a week later for snacks & treats. At that visit, she ended up staying for 2.5 hrs as we talked religion and told her the story of the restoration. She vaguely remembered parts of the Restoration story from so many years ago when she was given the Book of Mormon. 

We get to continually teach with the young elders in our area. They have been teaching a cute, single mom from Venzuela for about 6 months and they are hoping to invite her this week to be baptized in January. Pray for Yuleima!  

We have 2 other ladies, both are from Nigeria, that we often get to come along and teach with the young elders. They both have been taught for about 5-6 months as well. 

One of the things we are taking away from our expereince is how much the ward is just so silently grateful to have "people" (sr. couples) who are a constant in the ward - who can and will show up every week to give stability to the day, the week, the Sunday, the event, the meeting or the class ..... Well, we think they are grateful any way! 

Merry Christmas 

Elder & Sis Hanks 

Well, thanks for hanging in there with our long awaited update! We miss you all but our time here is flying by so quickly ! 

Also, our dear friends, the Nielsens are in our thoughts & prayers after the passing of their dear mom and my sweet friend Lilian - We love you!