E-mail from England

We've been patiently waiting to get news from Eric since his arrival in England, knowing that he would only be able to e-mail us on his preparation day. Monday is usually the day for most missionaries, so when Monday came we both checked our e-mail about a hundred times looking for something from him. When nothing came, we figured maybe he wouldn't be able to e-mail us at all, or maybe just not this week. We hurried and got a letter off to him, lest he be without any kind of mail. Then, yesterday, for some reason, we checked our e-mail again for something from Eric. Linda found nothing, but I checked a few minutes later and there was a lengthy e-mail from him. Apparently, his preparation day (p-day) is on Tuesday.

Eric arrived safely in England last Wednesday morning. He slept on the plane, and didn't really experience any jet lag. He spent his first week with the zone leaders and one other missionary. His first day there, they had a special zone p-day, where he got to meet the other missionaries, play volleyball and football (what we would call soccer), and eat hamburgers. Sounds like home to me. The rest of the week he spent proselyting, much of it street contacting. He described Leeds as a very diverse place, with people of a variety of ethnic and cultural backgrounds. He said he met and spoke to hundreds of people, including about 15 Chinese-speakers. I guess they were surprised to see a red-haired white kid speaking Mandarin. Most of them immediately began speaking so fast Eric could barely keep up, but he said he held his own. He is anxious to have more chances to speak Mandarin, and expects he will in his next assignment.

Eric leaves today for Sheffield, a city of about 500,000 population which lies about 40 miles south of Leeds. His assignment will be to work in the area of the University of Sheffield, an old and prestigious university. His new companion is Elder Chan, who is Chinese, but was raised in the US. They will be attending the Sheffield 3rd Ward. I'm not sure if that is a student ward or not, but it sounds like they will be working mostly with university students. That should be a very interesting and challenging assignment. Eric is looking forward to getting started, and anticipates having much news to share with us next week. We can't wait.

One other tidbit before I close. While speaking to someone on the street this week, Eric was distracted when he saw a right-hand drive Volkswagen Corrado driving down the street. This made both of his brothers happy, because they both own Corrados. Nice.