The London P-Day and the magnificent Brazilian Man‏

Dearest Fam :) It's so good to be writing you. This one for sure will have to be a bit more brief, considering it's a Thursday lol. And a 100% BEAUTIFUL Thursday at that, full of Sunshine and to be honest, I just feel happier with that sunny sunshine cascading down upon my face. It's brilliant to say the very least :) Thank you for the scriptures, sorry I was so persistent, and I know picking a favorite scripture isn't easy, but I appreciate it ha. You, family, sound amazing, per usual. Thank you so much for the letters. All sounds well in Zion. A treat to hear every single week :) I got a great e-mail from Gram and Grandpa Rushton. That was very kind of them, I sure do love them tons. AND I got Grandma Diane's package yesterday, and everything was in tact and awesome :) Ha sad story that I didn't get it on December 14th, all the clothes are so perfect for Winter ha, but they will be so valuable for winter Round 2. And the socks are still great to wear right now, when it's not too warm. I also got Grandma Diane's card too. So kind, I appreciate it tons Grandma and Grandpa and love you :) It feels so good to be back in Poland, in Bydgoszcz. It wasn't half as strange as you would've thought to get on an airplane 9 months into your mission lol, which I was grateful for. We flew to England on a 7:50 Flight and got there around 11:00. We made it through into London and Elder Hobbs, who was one of the two other elders, had been to London before for a few days and totally knew how to ride the Tube and everything, it was nuts! Ha, so we rode the Tube to South Kensington, where the Hyde Park Chapel is, and entered the chapel, and found the Mission Office. We talked to the office elderrs there, who were really cool, nice guys, and after kind of sitting around for 20 minutes we asked if they needed us to do anything. They asked us if we had any plans. We said, No lol. We thought about exploring a bit maybe. We submitted that maybe we could look around and be come back by 6, cos that's when our P-day ended anyway. They loved the idea, lol so off we went and saw so many amazing things! Again, Hobbs knew how to get everywhere, which was a blessing, cos we got to see so muchmore than we otherwise would have. Big Ben, Parliament Building were first. I could go on about each little thing, but I think I'll just list them lol. Fish and Chips was next- so darn good! I had to take out home funds ma, cos the exchange rate was disgusting from zlots to pounds. Hobbs exchanged 160 zlots and got 24 pounds. Okropny. Horrible. Rubbish. lol. But we saw the Tate Museum of Modern Art, which included several Monet and Picasso paintings and tons of random cool exhibits- I could've spent forever there, lol time permitted 45 minutes ha. We saw the St. Paul's Cathedral (in Mary Poppin's where the lady's feeding the birds, it's on the steps of St. Paul's. It's HUGE), The Shakespeare Globe Theatre, the Harrods mega shopping center place. We ate REAL milk shakes at this American place called the Hop. That was a life changing experience lol. And then in the evening, we contacted the Streets of London in the English language, which was so wierd. But amazing at the same time. I could certainly more perfectly experess myself and that was a major motivator to speak perfect Polish. I'm studying my toosh off. lol. So, this experience here made the day complete ha. We were contacting and I was loving it. It was just so different ha. And I was in London! It was just smashing, I'll tell you :P SO I contact a few people, have a couple conversations, but nothing amazingly special. Than, my life changed, as I contacted this man. He was Brazilian and he said he would gladly talk to me about Jesus. So we talked and I told him about the Book of Mormon, the man had a strong faith in Christ already, and seemed very down to earth. It was so neat. I asked if I could get his number and if the London Missionaries could set up a meeting with him, and he said surely. So i asked him for his name. And he told me, 'My name is Spartacus." And I said, "Spartacus? Spartacus is your name?" And he said "Yes, it's Roman, very old..." and I told him, "O I know. That is one fine name you have my friend." And we exchanged numbers. Spartacus. Brazilian, in London! Ha I really do think he could be promising though. So cool :)We spent the night with the Office Elders in their flat. It was so different hearing about a different mission. They had 12 baptisms last weekdend. They average 250 baptisms a year. We have 250 active members in Poland. So different lol. It was way neat though and way eye opening. Gave me good perspective on my own mission, gave me some new aspirations and such. Their mission is much more strict then ours on some basic things such as music, they have to have a part in their hair and whatnot. It's so funny- when the district leaders called in last night everyone was asking what their mission was like and I told them,"They all have to have parts in their hair." "WHAT??? NO WAY! That would be terrible lol." It's way funny ha. I Met the London Mission Mission President, President Foulgers. He was a very very kind man and obviously led his mission with love, It was great to talk to him for a second. The we flew back yesterday morning and to be completely honest, It felt so good to say "Dzien Dobry" to the Polish flight attendant as we got back on. I love this place so much lol. More than I maybe even realized. It's beautiful to me in so many ways- I particularly love being back in Bydgoszcz. I already love this place and with the sun shining out the window, seeing all these people walking around, it makes me excited to get out there and preach me so Gospel :)This last week seems like light years ago, but I'll relate the two major major highlights of the week. We had District Leader Training this week, where all the District leaders from Szczecin, Gdansk, Bydgoszcz and Poznan all came to our house the on Thursday night. We ate Manekin (the life changing Nalesniki place) and had a testimony meeting. The next morning we had the meeting where we did the "Training" which involved going through basically all we had been taught at our Zone Leader Training, but on a District leader level. It's interesting, cos everyone's so much older than me, the youngest District Leader is Elder McRae's age in the mission (four months older than me) and the other three are all going home in the next 4 months. So yah lol. It's difficult to really train for me when I've never done the District Leader bit, and probably hard to recieve training from someone so much younger then them, so at the start I just let them know, that they most certainly know how to do this better than I do, and they are welcome to but in any comments they felt were necessary, and then we started. I shared all I had observed and all I felt was necessary, and there was tons that I learned from ZL training to send along, and in the end, everyone commented, made amazing additions to the meeting and it was a major success. Everyone caught their trains before noon, and yah, it was way great :)The second highlight comes from a great miracle the Lord laid in front of us. We were contacting one evening and decided to take some streets we never had before, for some reason, Elder Jones thought we should turn down another street, for no real reason. And then on this street, I looked over at this apartment building that was very pretty, and we decided to tract it. The first lady we rang to wasn't interested, but let us in to the building. The first real door we knocked on opened up, and this man let us right in with a smile. He had a HUGE apartment, with a library surrounding the sides of his main living room and we sat down and conversated. He was interested in religion and we gave him a Book of Mormon, he was amazed with us and that we have such faith. He is a teacher and wants us to come speak to his entire class and introduce our religiona nd what we're doing here. It may not be for a couple of months, but this opporunity is amazing!!! He told us that we were maybe angles for him that day. Someone very close to his Wife had died that day and he himself needed some comfort, and I guess we were just that. The Lord is there for us, no doubt. No doubt at all :)We went on Exchanges with the APs today which was sweet! It was great to work with E.Whipple again. I love that man. So wise. We had some ridiculously amazing conversations and in a mere 2 hours we had found and set up with 3 new promising people. E.Jones met with one of them yesterday and said he is solid. SCORE! I also drove back to Warsaw with them for my flight to London, 4 hour road trip from Bydgoszcz, that was fun :)I made the AP's chocolate chip cookie's too, DELISH. Thank you mama :) ha. I really should wrap it up, but just know how much I love you and I love this work. You're so right pop. It is a complete WIN/WIN situation. I see that daily. It's one beautiful work. All is so good here :) I can't believe it's already APRIL. Unreal. Spring is here, your so right ma. It truly is a thing to be celebrated. I've never been so effected by the seasons before, even in college I was inside so much. Here, you really feel it lol. Have one smashing, jolly, brilliant, non-rubbish week my family and smile a bit for me. I can feel it, even over here. :) I love you, and the Lord loves you more than you can even imagine. Always remember to pray, even when your too tired, or don't feel like it. And read the SCRIPS! 3 Nephi 11,12, and 13 rocked my socks this morning. Some serious power there, I'll tell you :) so much love. tak duzo milosc :)Starszy Michael Rushton Jr.