Love from Sam 17 Jan 2015

Dear Family!

Another great week. 11 days and I am out of the office. I'm definitely excited! it's been really weird street contacting this past week because I know that I will hardly be able to teach any of these people; nevertheless I've still tried my best.  

the baptism of Simon last saturday was wonderful! the spirit was powerful and I'm sure it will be a day that he remembers for the rest of his life. the water was extremely hot. it hurt to even dip our feet in, so we had to get buckets of cold water and put it in, but it made for a good time. He is somebody I am sure will stay active for his life. His love for the gospel is special. 

Monday we saw some sweet miracles. The first was with a girl named Shara. We contacted her and she asked us what was different between our religion and most Christian religions. Usually when people ask me this question I mention something about a modern-day prophet, or the priesthood, but for some reason I said, " we believe that the god the father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are 3 seperate beings." she said that she was doing a study on that exact topic a few nights ago, and so she asked us if she could buy us some food and ask us more questions about our religion. so we walked to a cafe and sat down! it was great!  she is way cool. We are going to meet with her again in a couple of days and share the Plan of salvation with her. 

30 minutes later we saw an african lady carrying 2 large bags that looked really heavy. We asked if we could help her carry them and she actually accepted. We walked with her a ways until we got to her house, just talking to her about her family and stuff, and then she invited us into her house. We told her we only had a few minutes because we had an appointment, and she asked us if we could share with her what our church teaches in those few minutes. So we did, right then and there. We've seen her twice since. She has a bad back, and her doctor told her not to carry anything heavy. She walked a few steps our of the store, and prayed that someone would help her carry her bags home. not even 10 seconds later we asked if we could help.  God answers prayers. She is a single mother, not earning very much money. She is extremely humble! she's from Congo, and she speaks mainly french, but her english is just good enough so that we can teach her.  

Wednesday we had a new sister come into the mission, so we drove her to Nottingham where President Rasmussen was, so that she could be interviewed, and then we drove her from Nottingham to Cardiff, to her new area. we drove just as many hours as it would've taken us to get to Vegas from Lindon. the only difference is that the transmission is absolutely terrible in the van we drive. but it made me tired! 

Thursday was pretty solid. We've been working with a great investigator named Michael, I'm not sure how much I've mentioned about him. but Michael is from Lebanon. He developed different ideas than Islam, ,and when he was 35, he was brave enough to talk about. An extremist found out about it, and promised that if he didn't leave the  country in 3 days or less, than him and his group would kill him. He left to Algeria, where lived for several years until he moved to London. He's lived in the UK for 8 years and Birmingham for just a few weeks. He came to church this last week and loved it. He wants to be baptized. He said, " I've been waiting for this knowledge my entire life." After we shared with him the gospel of jesus christ, and the restoration, we told him that we were going to share with him god's plan for us, and what happens after we die. He said, " I believe after we die that our bodies stay here on earth, and our spirit goes to a place where we are instructed, and prepared for Jesus' second coming." haha he's pretty dead on. I'll keep you updated with his progress! 

Yesterday we had the follow up trainers meeting and then a great dinner appointment with the Hastings, the part-member family that were working with, the people who's house I used to skype home. They are slowly and surely coming along! I feel really pleased with the way things are going in the area, because I feel like I at one point we were really struggling to teach people, and finding was difficult, but when I leave this area the next assistant should be happy to find a big teaching pool. Even though I won't be able to see these investigatos progression the whole way through, I'm extremely satisfied and grateful for the miracles we've seen!

I hope all is well with everyone. I'm trying my best not to panic with the knowledge that home isn't too far away. I'm going to try my best to smell the roses as dad and spencer always tell me. I love you so much! have a great week, and I'm so excited to hear from you again soon! 

Elder Sam Harris