December 29, 2014 Christmas Week!

Heya,

It's been a nice week. It was weird to not proselyte so much and it reminded me how rewarding missionary work is. It's like exercise; it takes a lot of discipline but you feel all good afterwards and get stronger. 

I'm glad my SD card got home. Unfortunately I lost my camera cord so I don't know how I'll be emailing pictures for awhile. It's too bad too because this week we went hiking and got some really pretty ones. I'll find a way to get them to you.

So Christmas Eve was basically eating pizza and talking to you all and then we went to our Zone Leader's flat for a sleepover! They have a nice flat in Lancaster and you can throw bread to the seagulls and ducks and it's hilarious. We woke up about 5:30 am on Christmas morning and drove up to the Lake District to hike Scafell Pike, the highest peak in England.

This shows you the American pride of missionaries in England. I feel like English culture doesn't like the outdoors or adventure as much, but we demanded it. So we went on this super loopy tiny European style road for like an hour and ended up near some cottages with a huge lake spanned by sharp mountains. There were stone walls over dark green grass and hundreds of sheep with some little cottages and a church. All around us was fog and the sun slowly rose over this massive lake. We started hiking basically towards a cloud at the top. So Elder DiPeri, myself, and our zone leaders all went up what we thought was the highest peak in England. 

The hike was fun, not super hard but a good reminder of my love for backpacking. At the top it was frigid and SNOWING! We loved it because we got snow on Christmas Day in England and we sang hymns and left a Book of Mormon on the top hahaha. I filled a waterbottle with spring water from the top as there was a small waterfall the whole way down. It was amazing! I think it may have been one of the coolest places I've ever been. I decided that Matt would love it the most. It was like a mixture of The Hobbit, Skyrim, and Braveheart. Hopefully I can get some pictures to you all.

But the sad part. At the end we asked someone what we hiked and it was actually Great Gable, the seventh highest peak. Needless to say, we're going back.

On Boxing Day we watched some movies. My companion wanted to see Frozen and we saw some other film called Rio. Entertainment is silly these days haha. The rest of the week was normal. Church was really good, I taught Gospel Principles and Elder DiPeri gave a talk and our mission president visited. This week we get New Year's Eve partially off and New Year's Day off. Our plan is to hit the mountains again hahaha.

Fun to talk to you all on Christmas Eve. It was probably the strangest experience of my life though. It was kind of like you weren't actually there though, but like you recorded a video that I got to watch at Christmas haha. I was really nervous and jittery the whole time. I think I realized that since I haven't had older sibling scrutiny I have less pressure to be mature so it was like bringing that back on to see if I have brought forth fruit meet for your expectations. I'm on my only little journey of self-discovery and you saw me before the edges are browned! But it was sad at the end to just realize how much I love you all and how families really are meant for eternity. Thanks for your questions and I was impressed how much you all actually know and care about my mission and emails. If I seemed negative about England I'll have to explain one day, but I do hope to take you all back! It's a crazy place and even crazier to be a missionary in. 

Love you all and Happy New Year (it's not really my new year because I am a Chinese man at heart)!

Elder Webb

December 22, 2014 Happy Christmas!

To those who might actually have some snow,

It's been a great week! We got to go to the Preston temple as all the missionaries which I always love. We ate at the cafeteria too and I think that's what meals in the Celestial Kingdom will be like haha. British people love Sunday dinners for any time of the week so roasts with potatoes and parsnips and brussel whatevers and Yorkshire puddings are common, especially around Christmas. The weather here is mostly the same, just rainy and really windy next to the seashore. It probably won't snow at all, but a little higher north it usually does.

It's been fun proselyting around Christmas. We have special pass-a-long cards for the season advertising the "He is the Gift" video and just ask people if they know why we really celebrate Christmas. Definitely not every house on the block has lights up but usually everyone has a tree and some decorations. Tomorrow is a big dinner in Manchester with half of the mission and then on Christmas Eve we proselyte for about half of the day. Then Christmas Day we might go for a hike in the Lake District in the morning and have a meal with some members in the evening. Then we take most of Boxing Day off the next day and will go to some members or whatever. It's a way bigger deal in England.

It will be a weird week and this last week has been strange, too. We don't have too many progressing investigators. Most of the people we teach have been taught forever and it takes longer to make progress. I've been meeting more and more Chinese people. There are like nineteen Chinese take out restaurants in Morecambe. The man next to me in the library is Chinese actually haha, maybe I'll try to come up with a way to talk to him!

Mom! We were at this member's home and guess what kind of shop he owns? They sell wooden puppets. It's up in an area called Kendal and is called Grandma's Puppets. When he said it I got really excited and said, "Whoa, my mom looooves puppets." Then everyone looked at me really strange haha. If I ever get up there I'll have to send you some pictures or something. It's kind of expensive and difficult to travel in our mission for fun activities.

Otherwise not too much happened this week. We just did lots of street contacting and door knocking. Hours. It's becoming a part of my system to just talk to people everywhere I see them. It's so weird that it feels normal. A Chinese girl was baptized in our ward on Saturday. Her name is Dream hahaha. She speaks really good English though so that will help her get adjusted to the church and the ward. It's really hard for Chinese people here to get beyond their initial testimony and conversion because of cultural and language barriers I think.

That's about it. So for Christmas Skyping I will be at a family called the Gallaghers on Christmas Eve. We are going about 4:30 pm our time and the time difference is 7 hours. So they said I could Skype from his iPad and it will be for an hour sometime probably between 5:00 pm and 7:00 pm, which is 10:00 am to 12:00 pm your time. Hope that works! If not I think you can let the mission office know today and hopefully they can work something out to tell me when is better for you all, but that's the plan so far :) I'm not sure how I feel about talking to you all; it will be sort of surreal I think haha. But come up with some good questions for me and it will be great!

Love you all and I hope you remember the true meaning of Christmas. I'm pretty sure people talk about how everyone forgets it just as much as everyone forgets it though. I learned this week in a fuller sense how immense my priesthood duty is to share this Gospel, whether or not it is accepted or people listen. And that duty to serve Him is lifelong; there is no turning back in this life. I know that Jesus Christ truly was born to save all mankind from their own weakness. He cares; that is something I have learned again and again when the days are long. May we honor His gift to us in remembrance and repentance each day.

Love,

Elder Webb

December 15, 2014 From The Vineyard

To Them Across the Globe,

 

Greetings from England.

 

This computer has Internet Explorer and I think I'm running Windows XP, this is ancient! It's been a great week here in the Morecambe and Lancaster area. I think this was one of the fastest weeks of my life and with Christmas and everything this transfer will be over quick. It's weird to have a car in this area. It's so nice though when it's raining or hailing. It actually snows in Lancaster! Not a lot though. It hasn't yet but I've been told it will. Across the bay from us are mountains with snow on them in an area called Barrow and it reminds me of looking over Utah Lake from Provo to where the family goes shooting.

 

I'm trying to think of what we did this week. It's a lot harder than it sounds. On Saturday there was a day when members came out with us on splits for a bit of the day which was fun. It's nice because they know people in the area and we've been doing a lot with the new church video called He is the Gift. We're trying to get people to share it and we have little cards with a link that we give to people. The Christmas season is nice because people are more receptive to religion right now haha. Makes sense, gets people talking to us.

Elder DiPeri and I are having fun. He's really bold with people and I'm a little more sensitive or something like that so we're a good duo. There are a lot of people here who like missionaries and have been taught forever but never really made it all the way. Hopefully we can do some more in this great plan for each of us. The weather is crazy. Somedays the sun shines and it's amazing to walk down the streets in old rustic neighborhoods and somedays it's dark and raining and it feels like I'm in some sort of nightmare town. Good laughs to look back upon in a future day. 

There is a member here who served in Norway and he said the sun doesn't come up for three months in the winter there. I can't even imagine that. It sounds like a factory for real men. It's nothing like that here, but the winter will put a little more grizzle on my beard. I'm excited to hear everyone's Christmas plans over the next week or so. We will be in member's homes for most of the time, which is sort of excruciating according to Elder DiPeri. But the ward here is amazing and I think I will make some good friends.

You know when people say they love how the church is the same everywhere you go? I don't think that is true. It's so different in England. A lot of the members are older here so I feel like half the ward still is like in the 1980s in their worlds and the rest are iPhone friendly. Morecambe has a really weird culture to it. I don't know how to explain it. It's like if you took a Scooby Doo movie with California and put it in Harry Potter. Some of the scenery here looks like it's straight from Brave Heart. Pretty great.

Mom, did you know you always fed me English style meals growing up? All the food is so familiar but strange to my companions. 

My camera doesn't really work with these computers. Would you like me to mail my SD card home so you can see all the pictures I've taken? Obviously I can't explain them all but you might like seeing them. Let me know, it would be really easy.

Love you all, 

Elder Webb

December 8, 2014 Patter of a Seaport Town

Blesseds,

Elder DiPeri and I are in a little library in Morecambe, England. The Lancaster area covers the towns of Lancaster, Morecambe, and Heysham mostly and is in the Preston stake. Pronounced MORE-cum, not More-cam-BEE, by the way haha. Our flat is in a little complex in Morecambe about a five minute walk from the docks and we can see the ocean stretch out over a bay with the mountains (well, sort of) or Barrow in the Lake District on the other side. Every morning I wake up to the crash of waves and seagulls chirping and the white sun fringing the clouds.

That makes it sound pretty romantic, but it's actually freezing here and rain and hail and wind fall like bullets every once in a while. Get me my fishing coat from Doc Warner's! But I'm pretty sure if I had to live in England, I would live in Lancaster. The flow of Morecambe is like a hipster seaport town with Chinese takeaways and little cold English beaches and the homes are impossible to describe. I feel like I'm in mainland Europe now. And Lancaster is probably the closest thing to what you would think of Scotland or Ireland. There's great stretches of vivid green pasture and sheeps and English homes straight out of Harry Potter. Pretty steeze.

The ward here is amazing! Elder DiPeri and I came in to help build it a little more and they are responding so well. They already love us and they love Sister Sun so much haha. We don't have too many investigators from the previous elders but the flat isn't bad and Elder DiPeri is a missionary machine. He didn't believe in anything like a year before his mission and then came to church out of curiosity and investigated for like seven months and got a really powerful answer and most of his membership has been on a mission. He has no fear of anything and he just teaches boldly all day long! So I'll learn a lot from him.

Unfortunately I haven't talked to any Chinese people yet, but hopefully we will find them soon. The city centers are really fun with all the Christmas spirit and there are two major universities here. There is the Lancaster University and the University of Cumbria. As elders we are not allowed to proselyte on campus so we will try to find them elsewhere. I really hope to find some Chinese people that aren't just students, maybe like a family that owns a takeaway. Pray for me :)

And guess what we do that I've never done before? Door knocking. It's painfully awkward but no one is as rude as the legends state. I'm sort of learning that hours and hours of it aren't the way to do missionary work, there are much better ways to use time. We have a car actually that Elder DiPeri drives and we get to keep it until the end of December. It's nice for when it gets really cold but our miles are pretty limited. I think there's a lot of good work to do here.

So far we've only really taught this old lady named Helen and a man named Stuart. Helen's home reminded me of Grandma and Grandpa's Shadowbrook home and she had so many little decorations. It's impossible to explain what it feels like to be a missionary all day haha. And then Stuart is really great, he likes missionaries but doesn't really understand it all yet. It's weird to have somewhat of a focus on English people now, I have to admit I miss basically just doing Chinese but I guess I wasn't called to England by chance. I really respect the missionaries who aren't Chinese speaking here. But Elder DiPeri doesn't give up on people so he's a great example. I think since he's a convert his missionary spirit hasn't died even though he has been out so long.

Sorry I don't have any pictures, I don't like to carry my camera around for fear of rain or weight or whatever. This place and time will be a great way to endure the colder months of the year and build my missionary skills. 

That's about it.

Love you all,

Elder Webb

Oh yeah here's my new address:

Elder James Webb

303 Queen Square, Opus Building

Station Road

Morecambe, LANCS

LA4 5JL

England, United Kingdom

December 1, 2014 Rotenburg

Christmas markets (not actually in Rotenburg) and the thing that always pops up on Google if you type in Manchester.

December 1, 2014 Lancaster!

Dearests!

I'm moving to Lancaster!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is the area at the beginning of my mission I wanted to serve in most. It's probably the prettiest part of the mission except maybe Wales. It's in the Peaks District or something so get ready for some scenic pictures homes. I'm becoming so European here. So I'm leaving Elder Curtis in the YSA on Wednesday and we'll travel as far north as I'll probably go as a Chinese speaking missionary. I think I am the first Chinese speaking elder to go there, but Sister Sun served there for like half of her mission! I am excited!

Elder Curtis and I became great friends so I will miss him and a few members of the ward, but I was a little ready these last few weeks. I will miss Oxford Road and all the crazy people I have met here. Lancaster is much quieter and smaller with a university with a few Chinese students. And my next companion is Elder DiPeri! He has been an assistant to the president for the last like six months and only has a bit left of his mission. He is going to work me like a bull I think so that will be good and crazy. He is from Arizona and is a convert to the church of only about a year before his mission so I am really excited to serve with him. My second former assistant that I'm ending their mission!

The only other really exciting thing of the week is that Amanda asked if I would baptize her if she does get baptized. So that was exciting and I hope she does before she leaves England back to Brazil. And I went on exchanges this week to Elder Jin's flat. For morning exercise he made some wooden ninja swords and practices with them. I so hope I serve with him.

Today we visited the Christmas markets in Manchester and ate some hot dogs. It reminded me so much of going to Germany way back when. England is a little different than mainland Europe I think though. I got to go down to Crewe with our Zone Leaders this week in the south bit of the mission and it is such an old English town. It was sweet. It's weird that none of you know anything about these places that I hear all day. 

The senior couple in the YSA took all of us out for lunch at a place called Dogs and Doughs. It's like a hot dog place that is supposed to be American. It made me miss the good food we have back home. Be grateful!

Also, I literally can't believe it's ski season already. I feel like it's still summer back in Utah. It doesn't help that England has no snow. The house isn't for sale for the winter! Now you can all take a break. I'm glad all that work I did really payed off :) Haha just kidding but could you ask for the bed cover back from Kevin? I'd like to personally burn it.

But anyway I'm excited to tell you about my next area when I get there! 

Love you all,

Elder James Lynn Herbert-Webb

Scott, that pizza looks wretched and that watch is so nice. I have one with black leather that I wear every other day.

Laura, there was a little bakery called Food for Thought that we bought a donut from this week :)

Marc and Chel, I'm glad Janbo and hottubbing didn't die with me. Marcus your ankle looks so painful. Get me some of that hot sauce if Mom sends me more packages! They don't have ramen in the UK so our junk food is usually just cardboardy cereal. My fellow missionaries from New Zealand and Australia know about this turducken business!

Dad, I got to visit a dental office in England! Elder Curtis had a problem with his permanent retainer so I am glad you wouldn't let me get one. But they had the exact same wooden toys that go along the metal rails like your office! I guess it's universal. I haven't driven here yet, I honestly will be terrified if I do. They have pretty crazy traffic rules.

Mom, that picture of Sister Gish is where we email from in the YSA! It's where I am right now :)

December l, 2014 Ching, Chang, Cha

 Adam, my favorite Chinese investigator so far!

 Totes making this my cover photo for Facebook in the future. You probably thought you were getting junk mail with all these!

 The picture says it all. Elder Jin

 From left to right: me, Elder Curtis, Mario (Brazilian who teaches with us all the time), Amanda (the investigator from my emails from this area), and Susie (a member from Chorley who was Amanda's good friend).

 Last laughs and grub with the district. Hopefully you can see my personality hasn't changed, just come out in full fledge.  Dogs and Doughs!

Here's the Senior Couple that serves in the YSA. Find 'em on Instagram!

Judy and Enloe Pew