July 7, 2014

July! 

I definitely missed teh 4th of July this week. just a completely normal day for us. but next 4th of July, I'll be with ya :) and I might even go to stadium of fire for the first time. we'll see!! 

This week was great! it was amazing to witness the  baptism and confirmations of Ivy, Barry and Danny. Ivy and Barry are so special. Barry read the book of mormon in less than 2 weeks and just absolutely loved it. his conversion was so sweet. During our first lesson he told us that he wanted so badly to have a faith, but that he wasn't able to, the Book of Mormon resolved every concern he had in life, according to his own words. He's buzzing for the gospel and is telling all of his friends about it! Ivy is the same. This week, Ivy called us twice, because she had friends at her house, and she wanted them to meet us so we could share the gospel with them! 

At the moment the Universities are out for summer break, so we basically have no one to talk to, but we have faith that god will place people into our path that are ready for the restored gospel. 

I was able to baptize Barry, and Elder Costigan baptised Ivy. It was such a sweet sweet service. As soon as Barry hit the water he was smiling ear to ear. He said he wants to be an apostle. we'll see what happens haha.  I was also able to confirm Ivy, and while i was doing so, one of the 4 year old primary children was tugging on my leg and scratching me up and down my body. I had to try SO HARD not to be distracted or laugh. that's one thing I love so much about the church. With 10+ kids constantly screaming and yelling, the spirit is so strong! a place centered on families is the right place for me!! as Barry and Danny were confirmed, he still didn't let go of my leg. It was hilarious. and I'm just grateful that no one seemed to notice! 

I called Jill on Monday night and let her know that I was staying! I asked her if she could email mom so that you would know as well. I'm stoked I'm still in Loughborough with Elder Costigan! it should hopefully be another great transfer! I love what I'm doing.. have I mentioned that before?? 

I also cut my hair again. I'm embracing my bald self! bald can be sexy right?? I'll make it work somehow!! 

This week also consisted of eating a different chinese dish EVERY DAY. Ivy loves cooking so much! and she insisted that we came over to her apartment every single day and eat with her and Barry! honestly, when you guys get to try this food we'll all cry together :) 

Have a sweet week! enjoy the summer, enjoy the pool, enjoy each other! go and serve someone you love :) 

the best quote I heard from last week, 

"I love talking to random strangers on the street, because they are my future best friends." so true. love you all!

Elder Samuel Harris. 

June 23

This week was intense! 

So.. remember Michael, the Zimbabwean former investigator?? Well, we were having a lesson with him this week on Thursday, and he was showing small concerns of why he wouldn't be able to be baptized on the 5th of July.  We read with him the promise in 2 Nephi 31 that baptism is the gateway to eternal life. we asked him to ponder about what eternal life was, and what it meant to him, and we all sat there in silence pondering for a couple of minutes. the spirit was on fire.  Elder Costigan said, "Michael, How badly do you want eternal life." Micahel said, "I want the surety as soon as possible," then we invited him to be baptized on this saturday instead of the 5th of July and we sat there in silence for a bit and then eventually he said, "absolutely".  so. Michael was baptized on Saturday. It was an incredible, heartwarming service. Elder Debeikes, my companion in Coventry who is now the district leader in Loughborough was able to get in his whites for the first time and baptize their chinese investigator named Feng.  He is the man! 

On Tuesday we went to go visit Ivy before she left for London for the week, and her and her roommates were doing some gardening, so we helped them for a couple of hours, and meanwhile, we were able to become mates with her roommates, to make a long story short, Barry, Ivy's roommate is one of our leading progressing investigators, he came to church, and has so much real intent! every time we go to teach Barry he has questions written down about things he's read in the book of mormon, or what he's read onmormon.org. He is a legend at guitar as well so he's been teaching me how to play bar chords, we will go to his house during p-day today because he wants to cook us chinese food.  

The zone is doing great! this week we have zone conference, and so that means that we get to buy 300£ worth of subway, which means it all goes on my subway card, which means I get 4 free foot longs :) life is good! #SubwayTenderMercies.  

After the baptism on saturday we went out to eat with some of our chinese investigators and recent converts, and it was a blast! 

Elder Costigan and I were studying patterns in companionship study, and we both realized that a pattern of success and growing in love and friendship with our investigators has been food. so we made plans for this next week of how we're either going to make meals for our investigators, bake them cookies, have them make us food, or somehow, be able to eat a meal together. We are really exited about how this is going to help us! 

Yesterday at church was a very special day as well! not only was Michael confirmed, but david, our recent convert from a few weeks ago, was interviewed for the aaronic priesthood and I was able to ordain him a preist yesterday, which was such a special experience! not only will he be passing the sacrament, blessing the sacrament, but he will be BAPTIZING Ivy on the 5th of July. He also came out teaching with us a few times this week, and he was incredible! The best way to help a recent convert to stay active is to get them to feel the missionary spirit, and we are exited for the way that david will share the gospel in England, but we are especially exited for the day when David, like so many others, will return to china and open the doors of the gospel to the most populated place in the world! I can't wait for the day that china is opened. 

Life is good, the work is great, being a missionary is the greatest. I've said this way too many times, but if any you have problems you need to sort out, just share the gospel and all of your problems will be fixed! It actually doesn't make any sense to me that by sacraficing other things that are important to us and putting the lord first we will be happier, but it's so true. Satan just does an incredible job of giving us reasons why this won't make us more happy. but it will. I know it! 

I love each of you so much! I will attatch some pictures of the baptism and some other pictures, I hope you enjoy them! and I hope you have an incredible week! take care :)

Elder Sam Harris. 

p.s. USA! 

June 16, 2014

Well, I just want to start out this email with a massive frustration of mine!

We can't watch the world cup. everyone we talk to on the street just mentions how they were up all night watching the different games and they ask us what we thought of certain calls the referree's made and everything, and it's the worst! it's like someone who's trying to go on a diet and everything the only thing they can see is chocolate cake! but all is well. just a small sacrafice. I should have about at least 15 more world cups to watch in my life so it should be fine! 

I was bummed to hear that England lost even though I wasn't able to watch the game, I still hope that they will be able to do well, and crazy how Netherlands laid down the hammer on Spain. good stuff! 

Other than the small bummer, the work is still going great! we have been continuing to see some incredible miracles.  Ivy is doing AMAZING. she is up there with a few of my favorite investigators from my whole mission. She's so humble and sweet and she has changed so much from applying the gospel in her life! she always tells us how she's so exited to join the church and share the gospel with her friends.  This week we were able to teach her temples, and forever families and in her own words, "that is the most beautiful thing I have ever learned in my whole life." It absolutely is. She is 26, getting her masters degree at Loughborough  University, from china. We found out this week she had a kid 3 years ago! we were way pumped to hear that! she would be the dopest mom. anyways she goes to London this weekend for a week so she won't be able to be baptized until the 5th of july but I don't really mind that we have to wait a few weeks. 

We felt prompted to go by a former investigator this week from Zimbabwe, he dropped the missionaries a few months ago. He has continued reading in the book of mormon and he now knows the church is true. He will be baptized on the 5th of July as well along with Ivy (Yung Shou) Henry, and Caroline (An Jinyi). the work is progressing!

I got my license this week! it was a miracle that I took my drivers test in downtown Nottingham because there was loads of traffic so I actually only drove around the corner before the timed test was over and I had only made a few mistakes. relieved to have that whole thing over with, it was honestly causing the most unneeded stress haha but it's done now :) 

oh, something weird that happened this week, when I was on exchange with one of the district leaders named Elder Sommer, we went to contact this guy and he straight away told me to take my helmet off so he could fight me. this guy was pretty persistant that we were going to have a fight, and all I said is hello. but eventually after us trying to calm him down it was just best that we rode off. We are so blessed that we do not have to act in these ways! 

I'll be completely honest and say that I hardly ever know what to say to you during these weekly emails, but I hope they aren't extremely boring like I feel like they are! well I love you! please enjoy these sporting events, they are probably the biggest sacrifice I am making to be honest, and sometimes it KILLS me, but I'm sure when I am home I would have no problem to sacrifice those things over and over again to be a missionary. 

Have a good week! I love you all so much!!! 

June 9, 2014

Hey family!

This week was another great one.  David was baptized and confirmed! enjoy the pictures of him. he is the one sitting down, and the one in between elder Costigan and I. the person who baptized him is a recent convert of 3 months who is such a beast at sharing the gospel, a great example to us of how we need to be when were members back home and we have something as prescious as the gospel. After the baptism we walked home with David, and he told us the story of the series of events that lead him to want to be baptized. The lord was with us every step of the way in our teaching process and it was cool to hear his conversion story from his mouth. On Sunday after his confirmation he was so exited! He is looking forward to receiving the priesthood in a few weeks and hopefully attending the temple to do proxy baptisms. 

The ward asked me to give a talk this week on developing Christlike attributes, I shared some quotes from preach my gospel and linked developing christlike attributes to repentance, by sharing the conversion story of Alma the Younger in Alma 36, and how he developed christlike attributes because of this repentance.  I hope they enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed studying for it.  

On Monday we got a call from an unknown number and he told us that he wanted to see us as soon as possible, we immediately went there and he told us that he investigated the church 4 years ago and wants to be baptized. So... that was a miracle! haha to say the least. he will hopefully be baptized on the 21st. His name is Michael, he is 60, is addicted to smoking, and is very depressed. He needs the gospel so much and we are exited to see what it will be able to do for him.  

Another sweet investigator were working with at the moment is Ivy. She is a chinese Uni student who will be baptized on the 21st for sure. It's amazing how much we have been blessed, I feel like we don't deserve half the things we have been able to see. 

I'm grateful for the gospel. I LOVE that the gospel is about becoming better each day, and not just an immediate elevator effect. I love the oppurtunities we have to learn and grow from our successes and our hardest trials.  I love Joseph Smith, he truly is my biggest idol besides Jesus Christ. 

If any of you are struggling or not content with something in your life, share the gospel! it fixes everything. have a great week!! 

June 2, 2014

Hello family and friends! 

I love you! I really do! 

This week was once again, phenomenal! it's crazy to see what has happened to the area in Loughborough. The Loughborough district of 3 teams went from teaching around 18 lessons a week, to about 45 on average. the work is going nuts and it's so fun to be a part of it! I'm still trying to figure out this whole pattern thing in missionary work. I'm thinking I've come to a conclusion that god decides when he wants the work to progress and when he wants people to learn from not having as much.  This week I really missed beto's. just a side note, but holy cow I feel like the greasiest breakfast burrito would change the world! 

I got to go on exchange with Elder Debeikes, one of my favorite companions this week and it was incredible. the whole day we just talked about how much we wanted to serve together again. Before the mission on our way to Lake powell dad told me that I would become just as close with some of my companions as with some of my baseball teammates. I thought he was absolutely off his rocker, taking the mick! but it is true, especially with Elder Debeikes and Elder Unice they are my brothers.  We were able to teach a few people and spend some good time finding, we went to a pizza place that was a massive pizza for only 4£ so that made me happy.  We made a lot of progress with david this week. his date is fixed for this saturday, the 7th! please keep him in your prayers as well. Not only are we exited that David is getting baptized, but what I'm more exited about is a recent convert, also chinese, named Ji, will be baptizing David! looking forward to showing you pictures next week! 

Here's a cool story from last week! so we had 10 minutes before 9 so we decided we'd do one last stop by before we went in, so we locked our bikes together, not to anything outside of our investigators house. When we came out of the house 5 minutes later, our bikes had been stolen! we were way upset and asking everyone if they'd seen our bikes, but eventually we gave up looking and because we were on exchange, Elder costigan came and picked us up and dropped us off at our flat.  4 days later, we were going by an investigator and she wasn't in, and for some reason I had an impression to go look in some random persons back yard, so we did, and our bikes were still chained together there! we called the police, and they were like, "if they're youur bikes than why don't you just go into the back yard and get them!" so we did. as we were walking out with them, one of the kids saw us, and started yelling for his parents, but we booked it out of there and now we have our bikes again! it was a way cool experience that I'll never forget! 

I know the church is true. I love being a missionary! Please continue to pray for me and for the missionaries, members, and investigators that i am working with! I love you all so much, have a great week!! 

May 26th 2014

hey family!! 

This week was great! I do not have a lot of time so this will probably be quite short! It was another great week for Elder Costigan and I. The zone is really doing so well! we have been blessed so much to have the missionaries that are in Leicester at the moment! We are pretty sure that we set a mission record for most new investigators in a month! so we are buzzin' about that.  This week there were some sweet miracles. We decided to go to Leicester for the day of transfers to help the teams with their luggage and belongings and seeing them off on their trains and buses to their new areas. This left us with 2 hours where we had no plans, and it would have been a waste of time to drive back to Loughborough, so we decided we were going to street contact at the Leicester city center.  Elder Costigan and I split up and in 2 hours we were able to find 28 potential investigators! none of them will be for us because Leicester itself isn't our area, but it was fun to able to find for the other teams in the zone and go to a place where neither of us had been before.  

one of the potentials that Elder Costigan found actually is a uni-student from Loughborough and we were able to teach her and she is now on a baptismal date for the 21st of June! on the 21st we have 4 baptisms scheduled, and on the 7th we have a chinese investigator named David who is looking really solid! he came to church yesterday and loved it! received answers to his questions and he is really feeling the spirit in his life.  

tomorrow I take my drivers test again, and I would like to ask each of you to pray for me! the driving is soooo different here and it's much harder and I really need to be able to pass this test so that we will be able to go on more exchanges to help our zone, so please pray for me to be able to be relaxed and to pass the test which I will take tomorrow morning!

I love all of you so much! I also know that the church is true! Elder De Feo, an Area 70 (from Italy) came to our stake conference and he was INCREDIBLE. it's amazing to see how carefully he listened for what the spirit was trying to teach him, and during both the saturday and sunday sessions, he looked for patterns in the meeting, and free-styled 2 different talks based on how he was feeling the spirit. His Sunday session talk was one of the best I've heard in my life, out of any that have been in general conference or anywhere. He told the stories of Christ raising people from the dead in the New Testamanent.  No one in the world is spiritually dead. we may think that people have no chance of accepting the gospel, or of finding happiness, or improving their lives, but when the Savior lays his hands on them, they will awake. No one is spiritually dead, they are only sleeping!  my challenge to each of you is find those of your loved ones you feel are dead, and wake them up!  love them and serve them and have faith that the Savior can do anything! 

Have an amazing week! talk to you soon! 

May 5, 2014

Oh my gosh we've MAY'd it! heheh This week was great! our zone is doing excellent and it is fun to be a missionary in Leicester right now!  I am really getting used to Loughborough as I think I have said last week, the ward, the people, my companion, my district, and my zone, they are all great!  

Last P-day we just played volleyball with the sisters in  Loughborough, and then we were able to teach Virginia and Jill!

Elder Costigan and I have been trying something new with our university student investigators, when we first GQ them, we let them know that our lesson will only be 10 minutes, and then when we meet with them we stick to our ward, share the restoration or plan of salvation or whatever we feel prompted to, in less than 10 minutes! many of our investigators have wanted to have return appointments because they know it's not taking a lot out of their busy schedules and it's finals right now!  

On Wednesday morning I was having a really good personal study and feeling the spirit really strong, I felt prompted to study patterns. God works in patterns in our lives, and he wants us to be able to pay attention to what has been effective for each of us in our lives and to continuous evaluate and improve our efforts in whatever we choose to be important in our individual lives.  I was looking at the people that I have been able to teach and baptize and I realized that these were all people that were way more an actual friend than an investigator-missionary relationship.  Love breeds conversion!  obvious statement but it hit me over the head and I felt silly for not thinking about this earlier on.  We prayed loads about what we needed to start doing in companionship study to bring more people into the gospel, and we thought that we should try visiting loads of less actives!  We spent probably 15 or so hours visiting less actives this week, and only got in with 2 of them.. but we saw SO many miracles on the way!! 

On the way to a less active, we have found some incredible people, and have gotten to meet a really cool part-member family that we are going to start working with. If we can't retain the people that are already in the church, why would Heavenly Father give us more people?? 

We committed 5 people to come to church, and the morning of, we received 5 text messages of why they couldn't come any more, and we were a little bit discouraged, we prayed that we would be able to see a miracle and have someone show up to church. 10 minutes before the meeting started we got a phone call from our chinese recent convert, hannah. She was so exited to tell us that she was bringing a friend to church and that we needed to fellowship her! her friends name is legitimately meow-meow. chinese people rock! haha she is really great and we will now be teaching her! 

Jill is really progressing!! she is so exited for her baptism on saturday and in her own words, "nothing is going to stop me from being baptized. If I have to wait in the font until someone comes in to baptize me for a couple of weeks I'll do it!" she is incredible and we are so blessed to be able to teach her. it's about time is all I can say though haha. 

So.. Sister Kear in Loughborough ward said she'll be swimming in our pool sometime in June?? tell me more about that! I told them that mom would be able to give their daughter a great deal on real estate, so mom, hook it up for some people that are taking great care of me on my mission! they are 2 incredible people, with the most adorable grandchildren in the world! I'm exited for you to meet them. I could see dad and brother kear becoming great friends!  

I Will be skyping on Sunday at around 4 o clock! so... 9 o clock your time?? I am looking forward to seeing you all! I can't believe it's been a year since I have skyped you on last mothers day. absolutely mad.  

Well, I sure love you all so much! I'm so grateful for this experience of coming on a mission and the difference that it has made in my life and the lives of others, I cannot say thank you enough mom and dad for letting me come out here and share The saviors gospel!! 

Talk to you soon! :) 

Elder Sam Harris.