I wrote that as the subject because I forgot to shave today, and over the course of my mission this beard thing is getting serious!
Well, I'll start off by saying I had a truly wonderful birthday! In China they have this tradition of eating noodles on birthday's, wishing you a long life, (long noodles= long life) so, for BREAKFAST, I had some dang good spicy noodles with pork and tofu shrimp. soooo good! that was the first great meal. Elder Pogue had to do his driving theory test in Derby, which was the city that we went to every p-day while we were together in Eastwood, it was so interesting to go back to the same place with the same person! we ate at the same kebab shop and it was still dang good! Later on during the day, Jill, one of our amazing recent converts, took us to the driving range, and we hit a bucket of balls! I'm a bit rusty but I'll hopefully be able to keep up with spence when I get back :)
After that, we were able to have a great lesson with Anthea on faith. I learned so much about faith that I had no idea about before teaching her. The spirit taught me that the biggest strides we can take in increasing our faith, come when we act on the unknown, when we act on the things we hope our true, but aren't positive that they are indeed true. I have a lot I can change as a result of this knowledge and I'm exited to apply it throughout the rest of my life. After our lesson with Anthea we went and played basketball with loads of chinese people. With the University being off limits now- it's been extremely difficult to find new people, and basketball is the most effective thing we are doing as of late.
As for the rest of the week- Ariel was all set for her baptism on saturday, when thursday night she texted us asking if the gift of the holy ghost had to be on sunday. She found out that an emergency came up and she had to now go to London on Sunday, so now her baptism will be this week. Something amazing about this is that Ariel is part of the communist party in China, and she is leaving this part of her life to join the church, she's making a step up faith that will bless her life forever. Hopefully Anthea as well will be able to join the church this saturday, she is about 50/50, but we know that whatever happens is the best for her!
On Sunday, church was brilliant as always. We got to help our recent converts prepare for their patriarchal blessings, which is so interesting, Grandad Broadhurst emailed me this week asking about if they've had the oppurtunity to receive their blessings, and they will be receiving them tonight! we are buzzin' for them! and they are so exited as well. Barry was quite emotional yesterday as it was his last sunday in Loughborough, one of the members bought him a Quad scripture set, and he cannot stop talking about how much it means to him. I thought the best part of missionary work was seeing people baptized and confirmed. Don't get me wrong, it's excellent. The most rewarding part of missionary work is seeing your recent converts continue to feast after knowledge, when they truly do treat their baptism as the beginning of an eternal journey, and strive to improve each day! that's what the gospel is about, change.
I love you all so much! I'm sure loads of other awesome things happened this week as well but this is what I feel like writing this week! I love you all so much!
Elder Sam Harris.
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