Hello Family,

It’s so good to get messages from you all.  I miss you, and I can’t wait to see what the house looks like when I get back.  Who knows what mom has in store for it.  How is the weather?  It got up to 27 C here one day, that’s around 75 Fahrenheit.  Not too bad, when it’s sunny the whole place lights up and there are a good 4x as many people about.  That, and it’s a lot more beautiful when the suns out. 

We try our best to work with the members, but it’s difficult because of the very few numbers.  So we rely on working with less actives, referrals, and former investigators.  Since we are the first missionaries here in years, there are many less actives and former investigators.  We have several people we are working with specifically, but only one progressing at the moment.  Our biggest issue is getting our investigators to church; some are progressing wonderfully with all of their commitments except church.  Our best investigator, Gordon, lives 25 miles away and doesn’t have a car, so he will come by bus next week.  John, our favorite because of the funny things he says and does, like pouring coffee in the trash bin and offering us weird foods, is stuck in the mud because he can’t get himself to church, it’s a difficult issue to overcome.  We have just gotten so far with John that whenever he dodges appointments or misses church, we do what’s called “John Recon”, and drive around Stranraer looking for him, it sounds extreme but we usually find him, speak to him and everything’s good again.  He's just got social issues, mostly his family not being too keen on Mormons.  We’re working on it.

Moves (transfer) call in on the 23rd, and even though it’s at least a 60 % chance I’m staying in Stranraer, it’s still an interesting time, and the Lord is sometimes unpredictable in these things. We shall see.

Still love it here, the people are like jars of peaches stored in food storage for years, you may have to push and pull at the lid, and you may drop some, but the few you can get open are sweet.  Bad analogy, the people are tough, but nice and love to learn.  Something about this place, a lot of people can’t read, or can’t read well, and have a very, very hard time understanding the Book of Mormon or anything more complicated than see spot run.  But I love it, it’s still beautiful.

From Whithorn, the bottom tip of Scotland, more the Isle of Whithorn I can see the Isle of Mann.  I love motorbike races; the roads here are all really long and windy, perfect for anyone wanting a good race track for anything nimble.  Not exactly a Vauxhall Meriva, but it’ll do. 

I miss you all, you are great examples to me.  I love hearing from my family.

Elder Merrill