No Chocolate Week

This week I have dubbed the "no chocolate" week. Mostly because we forgot to buy chocolate on p-day... Which was really unfortunate! Some days you just need some chocolate to get you through! Chocolate here is amazing and cheap!)  Despite the lack of chocolate there have been incredible things happen this week! 

Oh also, CHEESE! it is so cheap and amazing here. Which means: Cheese on everything!

First( in order of sequence, not importance), we went on exchange on Tuesday! This was my first one. The sister training leaders are in our district, so we did a complete exchange. I stayed in our area and Sister Miller went to another area of the Harborne Ward. It was kind of scary to be the one who knew the area and who was in charge of getting us around for the day, but it was way cool! We took a combined lunch break, because the sister training leaders have a CAR! A true luxury in this mission. They have a home-made fire pit in their garden and lunch break was a blast! nothing like sausages, burritos and the smell of wood! Exchange is cool because we get to see how other missionaries work. 

Secondly, we now have two people on Baptismal Dates! M we taught for the first time on Tuesday. She really wants to know that God is there and is incredible! She is a University student here from China. There was a Chinese night activity that night, and she came! The activity was was a combined YSA/ Youth activity and was meant to integrate the Chinese in with the rest of the ward. We met with her the next day and she accepted July 14 as a baptism date!! We have a lot to do between now and then to help her get ready, but we can do it with the Lord's help! The second one is S2. She is amazing too. Her faith is incredible! We need to get her to church, but I think when she comes she will find it is what she is looking for. 

Thirdly, this Wednesday is transfers!! that means I have been in the field for a whole transfer!!! Time flies, that's for sure. We find out who's going where tonight. Sister Miller and I are planning on both staying here, but you never know! The situation with sisters and trainers is pretty crazy right now. So. Many. New. Sisters! (of which I am one :) 

Things are going well in our area. We are pleased with the people we are teaching, now we just need to find more! :) This week there have been a lot of times when we have left an appointment and felt truly directed by the Spirit. 

I heard in the broadcast missionaries are now allowed to use all sorts of technology?!?! That's crazy!! We'll see how that changes our mission. The work is moving forward. Its good they talked about member-missionary coordination because we seriously cannot do missionary work without the cooperation of the ward. Having good fellow-shippers, members willing to go teaching and be missionaries to friends and family is essential to the work! 

Good news: I got to wear jeans this week for service!! Hooray!!!! it actually felt really weird...I felt like a rebel!

The pictures: a lady on the street gave us the chewable toothbrush in a little ball thing... so funny!!! I haven't done it, I'll let you know how good it works though :)

The next one is just Sister Miller and I in regular clothes.... Hooray! 

I love you all! 

Thank you for your love, support, and prayers! 

Sister Meghan Roscher

Clearly the next big thing in dental care ;)

Not just one, but TWO hoorays for jeans! Oh the life of a missionary :)

Larry and Aladdin

More adventures across the pond! Just a little note- whenever Sister Roscher mentions names I've decided to just use initials. Hopefully its not too confusing :)

This week, I would call the week of miracles! We have spent a lot of time running for buses, and got soaked twice but all in all it's been good. 

A quick run down on the miracles: 

W was supposed to go to prison this week, but the witness didn't show up! Instead of jail time, he got off on a two year probation. We can now keep on teaching him. We lost contact with him, and assumed  he was in jail, but turns out he lost his phone. He just showed up at church all by himself! It was a nice surprise :) 

One of our investigators who hasn't been progressing since I got here had a breakthrough this week! Cool thing about her, she's from India and she was searching to get married, but couldn't find anyone. She went to Malaysia, and became a Christian! A week later, after a year and a half of searching, she was married to a member of our ward. (It was arranged, crazy right?) She sees it as a miracle and sign that Christianity is the way. She just happened to marry a Mormon :) YAY for us!! She believes the Book of Mormon is true, now we just have to convince her of priesthood authority so she can be baptized again. Its kind of a touchy subject right now.

Then, we had a first lesson with this man S. He actually talked to us when we were waiting for a bus.(This supports the principle that people who are ready for the Gospel will find us sometimes too).  He looks super homeless (we found out he isn't) and is a chain smoker. He has had a REALLY tragic life. His whole family died. And he used to be a successful business man. He needs the Gospel, and he wants to quit smoking! He is pretty much as humbled as one can be, but he has faith in God. Random fact: he prays on his families ashes because he can't let go of them. Nothing the plan of Salvation can't solve though :) We were teaching him at the church and a crazy homeless man came in (He's the one who spit on me) and interrupted our lesson! it was really touching to see how nice S was to him. I think people who have experienced really hard times tend to judge others less. 

Then another investigator who hasn't been progressing randomly showed up to church for the first time and loved it! Truly a miracle.

Lastly, another investigator (S2, who is from Zimbabwe) who hasn't been progressing called us and we had a WONDERFUL conversation with her! We are meeting her this week, and after a break, she is now ready to commit to the Gospel! I love her SO much! Her first lesson was actually the first lesson I ever taught to an investigator. 

We also taught a lesson this week to a lady who had Muslim prayers playing in the background... it was so interesting! We have laughed a lot this week about experiences we've had. 

This week I have truly felt love for those we are teaching. I see how the Gospel can strengthen and help them. We are extending 6 baptismal invitations this week, so it should be an exciting week!!!!  This is such an exciting time to be a missionary! Miracles are everywhere. 

The pictures this week are from P-day last week. The Chinese buffet was good. There was some WEIRD stuff there! And it was fun! There is also a huge Chinese superstore next to it so we bought some Chinese Candy and Chopsticks! It was actually super good :) I'll bring you some White rabbits home. They're delicious!

White rabbits are like taffy. I googled  it ;)

The second one is from our walk home for dinner after a really long day. There were slugs and snails EVERYWHERE! They were seriously the biggest slugs I've ever seen, Disgusting. Anyways, We got pet snails for 5 minutes (white handbook says no pets unfortunately). Mine was named Larry, Sister Millers' was Aladdin!

Meet Aladdin and Larry. Precious.

P.S- the white handbook is basically an instruction manual/ rule book for missionaries. 

I'm sure next week will hold more adventures! Thank you all for you love and support of Sister Roscher.

"Basically in China"

By far the most entertaining email yet. Enjoy!
This week has been good.I have been learning a lot. Our teaching pool is slowly going up (its hard work to get it up though because its constantly dropping). I had a traditional English breakfast this week at a members home, and guess what? BEANS, like baked beans, and mushrooms are part of breakfast. It is an interesting combo. We had it with brown sauce, which is basically thickened Worcestershire sauce. Everyone loves it here and I actually really like it. 

The ward here is awesome. Its actually the second biggest ward in the country so there's a lot of active members (and a ton of inactive ones) and a ton of diversity. Its pretty cool because at church there are members from all of the main continents and ethnic groups present. 

Funny/Sad story: I wrote about how we found W last week? We taught him on Wednesday and again on Saturday and he is awesome. He had some really interesting ideas that were very... original. He believed that Jesus was blind, and that's why the bible is lacking detail. And he needed a sidekick (his words, not mine) to write the bible. Needless to say, we had to clear up some misconceptions! It was awesome though because when we met with him on Saturday he had been reading the Book of Mormon and praying. His ideas about God and Jesus Christ have drastically changed for the better. The sad part of the story: He's going to jail this week. For 2-10 years depending on if he pleads guilty or not and the judge. He stabbed someone a year ago in a fight... We have offered to go see him in jail, hopefully he accepts. We at least hope he will take the Book of Mormon with him and now he knows the proper way to pray. He's awesome though. In his last week and a half of freedom (literally) he will have met with us 3 times. And he even came to church yesterday! in 2 to 10 years from now I really hope he can be taught by the missionaries again. He's ready! 

That's probably the most eventful thing that happened this week. Sister Miller and I traveled to the mission home on Friday for the new missionary/trainer follow-up meeting and it was really inspiring. It was fun to see some of the people I was in the MTC with and it was nice to see that we are all going through the same things! 

Today we are meeting with our District to go eat at an all-you-can eat Chinese buffet so that will be fun!  And next week for P-day we are getting me a bike (We're going to try biking to closer places) with all the fixins' Getting to some places it will be more efficient than buses or walking. An Indian lady in our ward is taking us Saari shopping! We're going to find some cheap ones :)  They're everywhere and they are so pretty! 

I have thought a lot this week about how we must continually be spiritually nourished. When we stop reading our scriptures and praying with real intent it is easier to slide off the straight and narrow path. It doesn't matter if you served a mission, were a bishop etc. you can still lose your testimony and become inactive in the church. And I would guess a lot of it has to do with prayer and scripture study! 

I have also learned a lot about what it is going to take to be a successful missionary and things that I need to improve on. There is a huge list, but I know those who the Lord calls he qualifies! 

The two pictures I am sending are hilarious. Our Zone leader bought us all really nice chopsticks because we "are basically in China" in his words. We deal with everyone, but there are a ton of Chinese people! and the second one is a picture of me coming out of the toilet (which I had to PAY ten Pence to use.) It was really nasty, but hey, when you gotta go you gotta go!

The real question is do they know how to use the chopsticks :)

This is such a Meg face :)

I LOVE YOU ALL!

Sister Meghan Roscher

Already Lost Count of Week Numbers :)

Sister Roscher's email was amazing this week! She's also starting to write like she's British :) Here it is:

To answer some of your questions which I forgot to last time: We usually have dinner appointments 3 times a week (this week we have 6 though!) and most times the members take us out to dinner. Its awesome because I'm getting to experience all sorts of different things.  I've had the traditional Tuna (I know. I ate tuna and didn't throw up) potatoes, and peas all covered in parsley gravy. This wasn't my favorite meal, but I kept it down. I've also been on the other end of the spectrum and had some homemade Indian food (it was SO delicious, but I accidentally chewed on a tiny bone). Eating food I don't like isn't a problem when I realize that a lot of the people feeding us are making a financial sacrifice to have us over. 

The shopping is good! We actually live a 20 minute bus ride from the city centre (downtown) and it is basically miles of shopping. We went two pdays ago and I got running shoes at the adidas store and a few other things. Shopping for food is interesting because they don't have big shopping centres like Walmart in our area. We go to one store to get food (no american brands) and then we have to go to a drugstore for toothpaste shampoo etc. and then another store for household items. That's why if we need something it might take a couple of p-days to actually get it. Also, its true. The ranch dressing here is weird tasting, there isn't taco seasoning, and they don't have American peanut butter (it tastes weird here) or root beer. Root beer and peanut butter are all highly desired commodities among missionaries here :) I'm learning to make do without the peanut butter.

This is going to be a long email because this last week was incredible. We have 3 new investigators! 

One is a 9-year old girl who's family has been inactive for about 3 years. They came to church this Sunday for the first time (YAY!) and we are teaching her and her family  again tonight!

The next investigator we met tracting. She is from Poland. She let us up into her flat (we had to get buzzed in) and we taught her for 15 minutes and she spent the rest of the time asking incredible questions about the Book of Mormon and the difference between the our church and the Catholic Church. She was a miracle find!

Then we found W. He is incredible. Sister Miller and Sister Muller, the missionaries here last transfer, talked to him at a bus stop but weren't able to exchange contact information because his bus came. Then Saturday morning (over a month later) we were out street contacting and we ran into him. He said he would come to church and gave us his phone number and address. We were excited because the chances of finding him again among all the people here were so slim. The best part is, HE CAME TO CHURCH! He just walked in all by himself ten minutes before church started! Good thing we were there to greet him and introduce him to people. We hadn't even taught him! He liked church and apparently really liked elders quorum where the lesson was on temples. We teach him again on Wednesday, and we are so excited! It truly is a miracle. He is a young single adult (he's 25) so its awesome because the YSA wards have so many activities he can go to! 

I was selected to be part of the Birmingham mission's "Come unto Christ" choir and we had a performance this Friday in Cheltnam. Sister Miller and I were on splits all day because she wasn't in the choir. I drove the hour and ten minutes down to Gloucester where we practiced with President and Sister Rasmussen and two others sisters. There were 50 missionaries selected and it was really cool. We spent 5 hours putting it together, had lunch and dinner and then the performance.  It was SO nice to meet other missionaries in the field and to be together with them. The English countryside is beautiful! We also drove through Stratford upon Avon on our way down! 

We have some awesome missionaries out here! They're from all over the world too. We have missionaries from 30 different countries. It was crazy too because we didn't get back to our flat until 10:40. Don't worry everyone in the choir got in later, and we were with the assistants. That's like 2:30 missionary time! :)

We had a dinner appointment last night and it was the most incredible dinner appointment ever! (I'll give you a brief rundown because its long and I'm getting a copy of the story so you can read it in 18 months). This family is from Pakistan and they were one of the first members there. The father got a hold of the Book of Mormon because a 17 year old from Utah sent a Book of Mormon with his testimony in it to England and the English man gave it to a minister in Pakistan. The minister was bashing the Book of Mormon and this man went up and asked to borrow it and the minister said yes. He read it, gained a testimony, and wrote the boys address down and then gave it back. Basically after writing this boy and 3 years of contact  with the area presidency he was finally able to be baptized in Hong Kong with about 80 other people from Pakistan. Incredible! 4 years ago the father was serving as a branch president in one of the branches there. Some things happened and the family had to evacuate Pakistan because his dad was branch president and their lives were in danger. and now they are in England! They are truly example of modern-day pioneers and their story touched my heart. 

This week we are going to be really busy, but we don't have anything out of the ordinary planned like we have the past 2 weeks. This week I have really learned of Gods love for ALL of his children. I see it when I read the scriptures, when I see ward members serving others and when I see our message touch someones heart. God want's all of his children to hear this message of hope and happiness and that is our job as missionaries. To find those who are ready to receive the gospel!

I love you all!! thank you so much for your love an support :)

And here are some pictures!