LOVE From Sammer 13 Jan 2014

What a week!

Good news! I found Sriracha hot sauce at the supermarket, and honestly, that was one of the best parts of the entire week! Surprise! Luke was baptized and confirmed this weekend! It was an incredible baptism. 4 investigators were baptized in the Coventry ward this weekend which is pretty remarkable for England! On Monday we gave Luke a call and he was finally home from Romania. He invited us to come over, shared with us his home-made romanian treats his mom made him, and we taught him and followed up with him, and straight away he says, "I know I need to be baptized this weekend!" and he was so ready. His testimony is so strong and I am so humbled to have been a part of his conversion, he will be an incredible member, and maybe even a missionary!

We taught a lot of lessons this week which is always incredible.  I've gotten to the point where when I'm street contacting, I only talk to chinese.  They are just so incredible. When the church gets proselyting missions in China it is going to explode with the gospel! they are so humble and they have the softest hearts in the world. 

On Tuesday I went on a great exchange with a guy called Elder Hall, and they have some investigators that love playing basketball, so I got to play proper basketball for the first time on my mission! I was rusty as heck but it was so fun to finally be competing because I suck at football. They play every tuesday, and we found 7 people this week who have all committed to coming to play with us, and then letting us teach them after. It is going to be a great way to find even more people to teach!

We have an investigator who is an actual Prince in Nigeria, who has moved to England to merry his sweetheart. He is so sick! his name is Prince haha.  This week he had us over for dinner and teaching appointment, and we ate some interesting stuff! goats, goat stomach, crayfish, boiled starfish, and then chicken. Some people in Nigeria eat the bones of the chicken! so he gives us the chicken wings, and then asked us why we didn't eat the bone, he then preceded to show us  that he can chew bones like they are popcorn because he has been eating them his whole life, so this week, I ate 3 chicken wing bones! it was crazy but they actually tasted pretty good. 

On Saturday we went to the mission home for the follow up trainers meeting which was really good, then had the incredible baptism! The spirit was so strong! and we had a couple of investigators there who are on a date to be baptized, and they really felt the spirit as well.  after the baptism, Elder Unice and I found 17 potential investigators in an hour... best of my mission! I honestly love talking to random strangers on the street.

We fed the homeless again yesterday which is always good! The people that organize the charity and the food shelter are all from a born-again christian church, and probably 5 of them  yesterday were just hammering me and persecuting me for my belief in the Book of Mormon. Of anything that people could hammer with me about what's "wrong with our church" the book of mormon was the wrong thing for them to talk to me about, as that is easily the strongest part of my testimony besides the atonement; I gave them a lot of scriptures in the bible that really shocked them, explained how we came to have it, and why it is important for everyone to read and pray about it, and then testified that I knew that it was true from the power of the holy ghost.. It was incredible! after I was finished not one of them questioned it, and one of the guys from the church named Gaz, Elder Unice and I are sitting down with on wednesday to talk more about the Book of Mormon. It was a great experience!

We have 7 people on a date in the next 3 weeks, so please continue to pray for Gifty, Rosalyn, Louis, Long, Zed, Kathy, Michael, Nora, and Sherri! I love you all so much! I hope you enjoy some pics! Have a fantastic week. I heard it is incredibly cold! I'm sorry. It's actually not so bad anymore in Coventry, only when it's raining it's absolutley miserable. which is like 1/3 of the days. but it's all good! Take Care

Elder Samuel Joseph Harris.