Don't let the jerks get you down!, 2 March 2015

Thissssssss week.

Thursday the Sister Training Leaders came up for exchanges. Sister Cannon and I had a rockin' day. We found a few potentials which is exciting. The most exciting moment was when we chased a dog.

The dog didn't chase us. We chased the dog.

We were chapping and began talking with Amman (ay-min) and all the sudden Molly, his dog, sprinted out of the house and away! Amman immediately excused himself and got into his car to catch his dog. Sister Cannon and I ran on foot to follow her.

Every time we got close and called for her "Molly, come here!" she would RUN. What the.

She finally ran into an enclosed gated area and we were able to corner her and pick her up. We made our way back to Amman's home and he wasn't there. His door was half open on account of he left so quickly.

Do we throw the dog in and leave or wait til Amman gets back...?
We just stood there awkwardly.

Thankfully, he arrived after a few moments and we set up an appointment to see him next week. hollllla.

Then all four of us headed to the Harkness home for dinner.
Dear love that family. We always have such good food and such fun time!

On Saturday we went to the Reid's home for dinner. Man, I love the Lisburn ward! They are amazing.

The Reid's spoiled us with a delicious Sunday dinner and Nathan Reid used his super posh skills to make us a fine dining dessert of: Brownie, poached pear, and apple crumble.

Yeah I know. Be jealous peepz.

Later in the week we attended a funeral for a member of the ward. Although it was a time of mourning, it reminded me of the plan of salvation. I'm so blessed to know that there is life after death; death is not the end! I'm grateful for Heavenly Father's plan and the peace and direction it brings into my life.

I love Northern Ireland and I love this work! And remember, don't let the jerks get you down!

Sister Skagen

Day of Love

I HAD MY FIRST RETURN APPOINTMENT.

Oh man. The day finally came where I taught the same person for the second time. We definitely celebrated. Although.. we may have gotten a little too excited too quickly because he will now not respond to our texts/calls.

All is well.

We did a service project and wore jeans. JEANS. What the. Sister Crawley laughed because I was spazzing out so hard on account of every time I looked down, I saw denim. Heart attack.

Then Sister Crawley may have left our flat keys at their home... so as we waited for them to return 'em, we took a few seconds to take some hilarious selfies. I nearly peed myself looking at these again. Enjoy.

Valentines was...exciting. We made Eat N Mess so that made all trunkiness disappear.

One thing that frustrates me is when people do things like this:
(we were talking to an older man about us being missionaries)
Him: "There's nothing biblical about your church."
Us: "Yes, we believe in the bible as well as the Book of Mormon."
Him: "I doubt that."

...

-____________-

I'm sorry, are you telling me what I believe? I think I may know just a teensy tiny bit more than you, sir, because ya know, I'm a member of my church.

Aint no one gon' tell me what I believe but me.
Scotland/Ireland Mission, stand up.

I love you all and I love this work!

Sister Skagen

Missionaries Rapped as they Walked

and walked...and walked....and walked.

We walked to Moira this week. Moira is a 9 mile walk one way. We usually take the train but we had a try by that the train didn't stop at.

So, we had an adventure.

We stopped for some sustenance, cadbury oreo bars and diet coke, used the very unsanitary bathroom and continued on, rapping and playing frogger to cross the motorway.

We finally made it after 4 hours and the girl we were trying by at the half way point doesn't even live there. Yes. Love it.

But, on our way back, we did take the train. Walking to it we ran into Stuart! We had an appointment with him a week ago but he dodged. He came up to us waving and apologizing for not texting us back and we now have an appointment with him tonight. He was our reason for walking!

and holla for my now swol calves.

Also. Sister Crawley and I bought pancake mix to make waffles...because nobody knows what a waffle is here.
HOW DO YOU EVEN EXPLAIN A WAFFLE? It is the hardest thing, sheesh.

But yeah so we borrowed a waffle maker and there we were making our lunch of deliciousness and DA HECK. Why is this not working? The waffle iron did not cook the batter very well....

Okay so, let's just make normal pancakes on the stove. Cool.

No. Why are these pancakes so thin?

CREPES. THEY ARE CREPES.

It says P-A-N-C-A-K-E mix, not crepe mix. Although, we discovered later there is a picture of a crepe on the bottle...

Not to worry, we just put some chocolate and banana's inside and boom. Heaven.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Valentine's Day this week! Spread the love!

Sister Skagen

​                           Audrey gave us Aran sweaters that she hand-knit. She is the best!

How I miss American Peanut Butter

Forgetting to buy groceries on P-Day makes for an entire week of a game called "What can I find in the flat that won't kill me when I eat it?" #sorrymom

I guess the most exciting thing that happened to me this week was eating pavement. Not in the sit down eat a meal kind of way, but the face planting hard kind of way.

Sister Crawley and I are legends at having fun. We need to be because of rude people. I digress. I was making up a rap on account of my life long dream of being a white girl rapper (there's still time, people). As we were crossing the street, I assumed the sidewalk was closer than it was so I stepped up onto what I thought was the sidewalk but was actually the ground.
However, my momentum pushed me forward and I went down.

Down towards the ground...with hands in pockets.

They got out in the nick of time, just as I landed so I didn't crush my face.

Hallelujah.

We got to go into Belfast to be companions with Sister Reed while she waited for her new comp. We headed to the American Candy Co.! Mannnn everything is expensive haha. It's like 7 pounds for a jar of peanut butter which is like $13. So I got a Reese's big cup..because it's almost the same. And Reese's, amiriiiiiite?

We went out to lunch with Elder and Sister Lorimer who are L E G I T. Yeah. So cool. Elder Lorimer is the man who created the idea of the "Trek" that you go on in your home ward when you dress like pioneers. What a boss.

We taught Maggie who is from Bulgaria. She seems ready for the gospel so we are excited. She loves how she feels when she reads the Book of Mormon and it's amazing that she is able to recognize it!

I love this work. I will probably continue to wake up thinking "I'm a missionary? I'm in Ireland?" every day until I return home but until then, I'm making the most of it. I'm so grateful to be on the earth with the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. I know He is my Savior and that He lives!

Sister Skagen

                                                                     Close enough....

Looks like I'm STAAAYING

We had moves call on Sunday night and I am Staying in Lisburn for another move (6 weeks). So much love for this place.

This week was slow to be honest but still full of fun. I will publicly announce that I had a bite of black pudding. SWAG. I'm so proud.

AND. I drove.

on the opposite side of the car

on the opposite side of the road

Only for five minutes but I'd call it a success on account of I didn't crash.

Friday night we went to Amie & Michael Lowry's house for dinner and I was introduced to:

EAT 'N MESS.

The best thing I have ever eaten and which will be in my heaven. Not exactly sure how sound that doctrine is but whatevs. Point is, it is angelic. I'll make it for y'all when I get home.
And we got to try on a bomb suit! Michael is in army and works with detecting explosives. (DAD - don't put these pictures on the blog okay? ONLY in the e-mail.)  It was sweeeeet!

We then spent the weekend in Bangor because Sister Allen went to the hospital so Sister Stevenson needed a companion. It was fun to get out of Lisburn and don't worry, Sister Allen is better and has been discharged :)

We made Move-zookies -- like Pizookies but on Moves Night -- *shout out to Ryan Powers for reminding me of the beauty of pizookies! They were Red Velvet cookies with Vanilla ice cream, so divine. And we may or may not have eaten the remainder of Eat 'N Mess for breakfast.. YOLO.

Sister Skagen

It's baltic, so it is!

Baltic is a word they use for "cold" and this week definitely was B A L T I C.
Good thing I wore tights that weren't fleece lined on the coldest day. -___-

Last Monday our dinner appointment cancelled so we went out chapping. Let me just tell you that I am not a fan of scary movies. In fact, I'm a proper pansy. This moment was probably one of the scariest moments of my life.

We approach a house at 6:30pm that is completely dark, no lights, no car, blinds shut. We knock anyway because that's what you do as a missionary. We have a 3x rule. You ring the doorbell, chap the letter box and then you knock. So two of those down and Sister Crawley and I are chatting to ourselves when all of the sudden:

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!?"

A small old woman with white hair appears from no where, literally no where (most people have curtains in front of their doors) and is s-c-r-e-e-c-h-i-n-g. Straight shrill voice.

"GET OFF MY DOORSTEP!"
"WHO ARE YOU? THIS IS PRIVATE PROPERTY!"

Holy cow so frightening, mostly because we hadn't expected anyone to be home. Surprise.

Later in the week we met with Sean and he is legit! So ready for the gospel. The Lord does prepare people! We meet with him again this Tuesday.

So there was one night that we got to our flat about 3 minutes before we were to be inside. We decided to walk down to the petrol station and back. We met a man named Graham and within two minutes we had 2 other men all talking to us about the gospel! One of them left the discussion without us getting his contact info and since then we had prayed so hard every prayer to find him because he seemed so interested. The next day while in the library teaching our recent convert, a man sits down on the couch next to us.

JAWS DROPPED. It was the one who got away! We were in shock. He ended up not being interested but such a testimony that God hears and answers our prayers. hollaaaa

AND IT SNOWED. An inch! But it's way better than rain.

While walking home that night by the park, Sister Crawley and I are just minding our own business when something hits me in the back of the head. I turn around and this kid yells "CHUMP!" and runs away back to his little friends.

It was a snowball. Okay well like 1/8 of a snowball because the genius decides to throw it through a fence which took most of the impact.
I was raging though! How dare that little tween throw a snowball at me and then run away! Face.me.like.a.man!

I know why he ran though, it's obvious. He knows I'm from Pennsylvania and have had yeeeaars to perfect the art of snowball making, you don kno nuttin bout dis! Awe yeahh.

But. This week was great. Sister Crawley and I worked our tails off! We make a pretty good team. Although the majority of our appointments cancelled or didn't show, we were able to find loads of potentials and had plenty of opportunities to share our message.

I AM LOVING IT HERE. :)

Sister Skagen

                                                                 Holywood District!

ALL IRELAND CONFERENCE

So the Titanic museum was pretty sweet! It is the world's largest Titanic Visitor Center. The boat sunk because she wanted to get baptized obbbbviously. Check out the pic for proof.

We went down to DUBLIN BABY. All hail the Republic of Ireland. The Northern Ireland accent is muuuch harder to understand than Dublin at least. Talking was smooth sailin brah. I was on exchanges with Sister Henkel. She is from Germany and is wonderful!

The next day we had an All Ireland Conference. Love it. President and Sister Brown were there and the instruction was on point! The theme was involving the members in missionary work. WE CAN NOT DO IT ALONE, PEOPLE. We need your help. If you are having missionaries over for dinner, invite a nonmember! So simple and the missionaries will love you forever.

Our investigator Chris, dropped us. Saddest text of our lives. Please take a moment of silence as we wallow in self-pity.

...

Cheers.

We just had such high hopes for him. All is well. BECAUSE GUESS WHY.

Mormon.org self-referral baby. Awe yeaaaaah. We're meeting with Sean tomorrow and are beyond stoked! I love being a missionary!

Especially when we experience moments like this:

"Hi sir how are you?"
"I don't have a lady to rumble around the sheets with!"

... anddd we're leaving now. hahahahaha.

Sister Sahara Skagen

Scotland/Ireland Mission
51 Spylaw RD
Edinburgh
Scotland
EH10 5BP
United Kingdom

                                                                  Sister Henkel and I.