November 8, t2014

Hey hey!! 

As I said to dad already, this was easily the busiest week of my life! On Saturday the baptism of Sonia was brilliant! She loved her experience, and the confirmation was very special for her as well. One of the most tender moments I'll remember forever is a prayer that she offered on monday, a prayer of gratitude to have been able to learn about the book of mormon, Joseph Smith, and especially about the atonement. She understands the gospel and gets repentance, it's been incredible to be a part of her teaching process. 

On Sunday we drove to Hereford to drop off Elder Dryden-he's the man! it was fun to spend a day with him, when we got back to Birmingham we spent the rest of the night finishing transfers. It was such a spiritual and uplifting experience to have been a part of transfers.  It was a shock to me how much of an influence Elder Higham and myself had on transfers. 

Monday we had call ins with the zone leaders and spent the rest of the day in the office as usual. Staying up til 2:30 a.m. working on the travel arrangements for the missionaries getting transferred.  Tuesday we woke up and finished the travel arrangements, and then spent the rest of the day with departing missionaries.  The train station is about an 30 minute walk away from the mission office, and so we spent a few hours going to and from the train station picking up departing missionaries. As they had their departing interviews with president, we weighed their luggage to make sure they would be able to get on the flight without the 200£ fee if the luggage is over weight, and then, we participated in what is called, "Trunky night," basically we all go to the mission home and eat an incredble meal, go around the table and talk about mission memories, then we have a testimony meeting that last around an hour, and then they stay up all night reminising on the mission, until 3:00 A.M. when we wake up to get to the air port. Participating in this day with the departing missionaries was a crazy experience. It made me realize a lot of things. 1. There is an end to full-time missionary service. 2. The time we have is SO limited 3. I want to make it to that day, knowing that I gave everything I could to the savior for this short time of 2 years.. 4 months to go, I can't believe it's actually coming to a close in the near future. 

Wednesday we met the new missionaries, helped them, answered their questions for what the mission is going to be like, and gave them some good food. It's weird looking back to the first days of a mission as well, because I was also, very nervous, very afraid of what was going to happen, and aware of how long 2 years was. It's so crazy, because it's said all the time, but the second that we forget ourselves and let this become god's mission everything just seems to work out, we are happier, the work goes better, miracles happen. 

Thursday we had mission leadership council again, it was another great meeting. 

Friday we got to proselyte for the first time, for about 2 hours. The work is going incredibly slow at this point in time, but in the short time we've had to find new people, we've seen some miracles. We're now teaching a lady called Zamdi, she's from South AFrica, she obviously loves Jesus, and after we shared the restoration with her she said, "If this is true than it's the most important message in the world." she hit the nail on the head with that one.  

That's about it for this week. I can't wait to take a nap after I'm finished emailing! thanksgiving is in a couple of weeks which is crazy, and I'm excited for you all to have a wonderful holiday season! please know that I am in good shape out here, trying to soak in every second to set a foundation for the rest of my life to grow upon. LOVE YOU ALL!!! 

Elder Sam Harris.

Nov 1, 2014

Good Morning family!

First off... Marsh gets home on TUESDAYYYY!!! you'll have to go to his homecoming and take some pictures with him. He did it, Marsh has set the example for us to follow, what a beast! 

This week was way solid. We spent all day on monday preparing the reports for the 8 stake presidencies that the mission covers for convert baptisms. The mission covers the Merthyr Tidvill, and Cardiff Wales stakes, and then the Cheltenham, Birmingham, Lichfield, Nottingham, Leicester, and Coventry stakes in England.  

Tuesday was rad. I got to go on exchange with Elder Costigan, another one of my past companions. It was like we never seperated. Our unity while finding and teaching came back just like that!  A member in another ward, referred her friend who lives in the Wylde Green ward, so Elder Costigan and I taught him a first lesson, and the spirit was incredibly strong. He accepted the message and was unusually excited to read the book of mormon- no complaints there.  We taught Sonia in the evening about the priesthood, and she is SO EXCITED for her baptism tonight. We will send pics next week! 

Wednesday I read a talk called the challening and testifying missionary. It changed the way that I think about a lot of things. Go and read it! you can relate it to whatever you want in your life that is important to you. The main theme of the talk is this-- the best time to accomplish our desires is NOW.  It talks about how the second that we know someone is feeling the Holy Ghost, we are supposed to challenge them right there, let them recognize the spirit, and invite them to do something bold, talks about how we don't prepare someone for a challenge, because then it isn't really a challenge. I don't know, it's difficult to explain, but it was something that I am looking to apply for the rest of my mission/ life. 

As a result of this talk, the second that Elder Costigan and I thought that someone was interested, we would invite them to do something pretty crazy-- for example, Elder Costigan invited a former investigator who investigated 1 year ago to be baptised on the 29th of November. She accepted.. now this was on the street! Her name is Julia. Her mother is a Jehovah's Witness, but she made her stop investigating in the past, but now that she is 18, her mom is letting her do whatever she wants, and so now she is pretty adoment about joining the church. Another pretty massive miracle. I know God leads us to people who are ready to accept his message.  

Another one of our new investigators this week is Kati! she is from Hungary, and she is so sweet and nice. The way that she views life is incredible, probably one of the most optimistic people I've ever met. She's been in the U.K. for a week, has no job, a very interesting living situation, but she is so sure and hopeful that everything will work out- I'm sure it will! 

Last night President  Rasmussen called us into his office, and we spent a few hours talking about the new transfer, and changes that we thought would be appropriate. I absolutely love doing things like that! One of my favorite things that I have learned from President is his ability to receive revelation. He just does what it says to do in the scriptures, he ponders, studies, and prays, and ponders, it sounds so simple! I think that is something everyone wants to be better at is understanding exactly how the spirit communicates with us. 

Right after emailing we are going to drive to Hereford, where we will pick up Elder Dryden, Sarah Bowles little brother, he will be on an exchange with us for the next 2 days. should be fun! Life is always good as a missionary, I have no complaints! As much as I miss you all, I believe with all of my heart that this is exactly where I need to be. have a great week! Love you!!!!!!!

Love, 

Elder Sam Harris

Oct 25th, 2014

Family!!

I will say sorry before hand, we have basically no time today but I will try to fit in as much as I can for this week. 

First off, I loved seeing pics of everyone, especially in Boise! I'm so looking forward to visiting the family soon after I finish my mission.  Seeing Spence and Mike golfing made me a little excited for the future.. WAY EXCITED. 

This week was a humbling week in a lot of ways, but we still saw some miracles. Sonia is definitely going to be baptised a week from today, which is absolutely nuts! She is great. One of the most lovely people I've met in my whole life, and she's just really sweet.  It rained this week.. A LOT. well, it rains every week, but this week it rained HARD. it rained so hard yesterday that on some of the streets, the roads were flooded so the water was halfway up the car when driving! it was like driving with faith haha because we couldn't see the lines, we just had to trust that we were in our lanes. it was good fun though and we got some good videos.  I'm so tired of the rain, but I can imagine that upon my return home each time it rains I will happily go and embrace it. 

We spent LOADS of time finding this week. We got loads and loads of return appointments, close to 30, but only a few of them stuck, which was really frustrating, but we are pushing through it. Besides Sonia and Matte, are teaching pool is struggling quite a bit.  One pretty fantastic thing that happened this week was the finding of 3 new investigators, PHillipus, Yanis, and danight. They are from Eritrea (add that to the list of people I've met on my mission from different countries) They are humble and love Jesus, so there is definitely some cool potential there.  

Today we're going golfing... AGAIN :) I love that my companion is a golfer. It's amazing to be able to relax for a couple of hours despite how frustrating it is that I can't chip or putt haha. 

Life is good, time is going by a little too fast for my liking, but it's all good. 

Enjoy having Marsh home on the 3rd of November! that should be fun. he's a good kid and I miss him like heck. 

Love you all, thanks for being awesome! 

Love,

Elder Sam Harris

Oct 18, 2014

Hey family!! 

Last week, Sue was baptised and confirmed, I'll send the pictures in another email to you.  It was a really great service! we had about 30 of the members come out to support her, and the spirit was really strong, as always. She is still doing awesome, she's working towards going to the temple in November, and it is always such a delight to spend time sharing the gospel with her! 

On Sunday we had Sonia come to church, she is doing AMAZING! We saw her on sunday night with the same senior couple I mentioned earlier called the Jolley's, and she has been reading and praying every day, she hasn't missed church since the first time we met her, and when we asked her how she was feeling about Nov. 1st, she said that she knows she needs to do it. We finished teaching her the commandments this week, and now all we have to share with her is about the temple and family history.  She is one of the sweetest ladies I've met on my mission, and she is going to be an outstanding member of the church! she was so prepared by the lord to receive this gospel, and it's amazing to look back from finding her a few weeks back, to how much progress she has made in such a short amount of time because she has been diligent in reading the Book of Mormon daily, and praying sincerely to know if it's true. 

Golfing was way fun! we're going to the putting green again today. I shot a 38, not bad for not playing in 18 months, but always room for improvement :)  

On Tuesday we taught a new investigator, Shauna, and we put her on a date to be baptised on the 15th of November! She has heard of the church in the past from a friend in college, and when I contacted her on the street she was pretty excited to meet with us. Please keep Sonia, Shauna, and Matte in your prayers!

Matte is the Hungarian kid we mentioned earlier. He's a great kid, but we're not sure how much desire he has at the moment. 

To answer a few of dad's questions, I got pictures of me and my previous companions at mission leadership council, and we'll have plenty more where they'll all be there, we give training at the mission leadership council and at zone conferences, and at zone conferences I'll get to go to Wales, in Cardiff, and Swansea for the first times as well. 

A miracle we had was on Thursday, I street contacted a man who, with a giant smile on his face, asked, "Are you a mormon missionary?" turns out that this man, Nigel, investigated the gospel 30 years ago when he was in his teens. He just found his faith in Jesus Christ 10 years ago, and he asked if we could sit down right then and have a discussion about the book of mormon, because he thought it might make more sense to him now that he has a faith. As we sat down together and discussed the restoration and the Book of Mormon, he was so excited to read it. He promised me that he would read the whole book in the next 3 weeks, and we can't wait to follow up with him and see how he's feeling about the gospel. We're also excited because he is a lawyer, and has a family, and he's incredibly bright. He's a kingdom builder!-- not sure what's happned with the font style. 

love and miss you! let me know of any other questions you have for me! 

Oct 11, 2014

Good morning family!

This week was brilliant!

On Monday, we once again, spent all day in the office preparing for mission leadership council, and printing out the key indicators for the mission, as well as finalizaing the monthly report for convert baptisms that gets sent to the church headquarters. 

On Tuesday, Mission Leadership Council was great. I always enjoy seeing my good friends from the mission, each of my companions still on the mission were at the meeting. It was great to see Elder's Debeikes, Costigan, Pogue, and Unice.  After MLC I got to go back to COVENTRY! It was probably in my top 3 favorite exchanges of my mission so far.  First, we went and visited Sam and Sarah Bowles, and then, we got to go and visit Gifty! she is soooo sweet. I walked into the door, and she was expecting the missionaries that are currently there. When she realized it was me her face just lit up it was a priceless moment.  "HHHAAARRRRIIISSS!!!!!!" Sam and Sarah also made us breakfast, and then we went street contacting at the university there for a few hours, in the pouring rain. after an hour and half of being completely soaked, I was basically numb in most of my body so the pain was gone and we had more energy to keep going until we had to exchange back :) as much as it is cold and wet, while talking to these random strangers, every so often I realize how much I love being a missionary, and how much I will miss this when it's over. 

Wednesday we did a lot of finding actually which was a great change of pace from being in the office. 

On thursday we had zone meeting, and then sue's baptism interview. Sue will be baptised in about 5 hours, we're really looking forward to it, and so is she! we'll send pictures next week.  On Thursday we had an opportunity to teach in a members home. As we were waiting for an investigator to come to the appointment, we decided to street contact an old woman. Her name is Trish and she's a miracle. She is SO SWEET. She's extremely roman catholic. As we had the first lesson with her yesterday, she said before we said anything, "I'm not ever going to be a mormon." As we talked about the restoration, and especially the great apostacy, everything made sense to her, and by the end of the lesson she was so excited to read the book of mormon, to find out if God really does call prophets today.  It was a testimony to me that god puts people in our paths that are looking for the truth, even if we only have 3 mintues of finding time. 

Oh yeah, I was sick all week as well, every morning I woke up and felt like I couldn't move, but every day I was able to make it just to the end with strength sufficient to finish out the day before I would fall asleep regardless of what we were doing. I'm feeling much better now and have been using OnGuard on my chest and throat, I think it's helped heaps! 

After were finished emailing, we're going to pipe-hayes golf course to play 9!! woo! I'm stoked, even if I shoot in the 50's, it's going to be a blast to go out there and play. the deal is, 10 pounds for unlimited golf after 2, and because it's pretty cold and windy, I reckon hardly anyone is there! so, we might even get more than 9 holes in :) 

Know that each of you are in my prayers and I'm excited each time I hear from you. I'm glad that you're all happy, and I pray that you will be able to achieve the righteous desires of your hearts! 

Love and miss you!

Elder Samuel Harris. 

Sept 22, 2014

good morning!!

This week was pretty good! some more goodbye's... but it was alright! last monday for p-day we went to a monastary called mount st. bernadino's abbey or something like that, basically a place where monks live for their whole lives dedicated to god. it was beautiful! I'll send some pics in a few weeks of the abbey. 

This week we saw one of the coolest miracles I've ever seen on the mission.  I was on exchange with an Elder called Elder Bies. We were streeet contacting and we met a chinese giril named felicity. she was way cool, and we got a return appointment with her for saturday. nothing else really happened it was a pretty normal contact. However, the same night, Ivy called us from China, telling us that one of her best friends Felicity, randomly felt like she needed to tell Ivy about the event. She had no idea Ivy was a member, and she hadn't sent Ivy a message in a few weeks, but she opened up her message by saying, (according to the translation of Ivy, they are both chinese) " Hey Ivy, I just met 2 missionaries from America, I've been really sad the last few months and I hope they can help me change my life." Ivy quickly asked what the names were of the missionaries, and she replied. "The one from utah is Xie Ding- Long" Ivy was so excited to hear that she was talking about us. Ivy then preceded to share her testimony with her, and Ivy said to pay close attention to what we have to teach her. what a miracle! We taught Felicity on Saturday, she understood everything. She came to church on Sunday, and LOVED IT! It was the primary program, and that's brilliant for new people to see. After church I asked her how she liked it, and she said, "I'm going to tell all of my friends about this place because I feel great." haha I said, "Hey, that's what I do 24/7, maybe we can hire you!"  we showed her pictures of Ivy's baptism and she said that she really wants to join the church, we told her that we will need to teach her several more times so that she can know what she is joining, and she is looking forward to learning more. I wish things like this could happen all of the time for missionaries who are struggling. the crazy thing is, every missionary who talks to loads of people every day sees loads of miracles, and those who are not working hard cannot have these same experiences that will change their lives forever. I'm grateful for good examples in my life who have taught me to work hard and be able to have such memorable experiences. 

I said goodbye to Ariel, Alex, Anthia, and they are nearly the last of my godbye's, besides members. we still haven't received transfer news yet, we will tonight, so I'll try my best to let you know sometime tomorrow what's happening with me for my last area.  I'm really hoping to go to Wales as I have not yet served there and I think it would be a great experience. I've heard that it's extremely tough for finding people to teach, but I think I would love it! 

Today for P-day we'll be going to Leicester down town, and just hanging out for what should be my last p-day in the zone. 

On Saturday Alex and Ariel, and Jeff, (ivy's awesome boyfriend who we've only known for 2 weeks) took us to a cheng du style restaurant where we had hot pot. holy cow do I love hot pot. ask steve nickle about it, I'm sure he likes it as well.  it was a farewell dinner and I honestly don't like western food that much anymore. but I can't wait to bring you all to china with me in the future! gonna be sick! 

After church there was a little lunch prepared for us by the members who live in a small village called melton mowbray. We got talking to some of the members about golf, and found out that there are 3 members that are golfing regularly, but are not improving, and they've asked me if I can look at their swings haha, if I'm here for next p-day, I'm going to a sweet golf course called six hills. 

I love you all, another week has gone by... wow! 4 transfers left, leaving it all on the field! talk to you soon!

love, 

Elder Sam Harris. 

Sept 15, 2014

Hey guys! 

This week was legit, and very spiritual!! I feel like my testimony has increased loads this week. Finally our finding efforts have been paying off and we've been able to establish a better teaching pool, despite not being able to work on or near the uni, things are going ok! This week Ariel was baptised and confirmed, she asked me if I could perform both of the ordinances, and I was happy to! the baptismal service was incredibly spiritual.  Because Ariel is so shy, there were hardly any people in attendance, because she wanted it to be that way, however, each of the teams in Loughborough brought investigators that really benefitted from watching a baptism.  One of our investigators, Anthea, had a great experience- after the baptism, Elder Pogue and I went up to talk to her, and in her own words she said, "I feel like I want to cry!" she didn't look happy, so I asked her if she wanted to cry in a good way or in a bad way, and she said that she wanted to cry in the best way possible. She received her witness that being baptised is exactly what she needs to do! 

Another miracle we saw from the baptism is Ariel's husband, Alex, loved it as well, and he told us that he is next in the font once he is able to quit smoking.  The other elders investigator, Aidan, a 13 year old boy, loved the service, and he's really looking forward to his baptism this weekend as well.  

We found some excellent new people this week! one of them is named Melanie. she is a sweet sweet woman in her late 20's, who is suffering from a Heroin addiction. She has 2 children, and she wants more than anything to be able to quit this terrible habit. She isn't your typical junkie drug user, she's a sincerely incredible woman who has unfortunately made a few choices in her life that she's had to suffer for, but we're confident that the gospel will change everything in her life. It makes me so sad to see things like this, but also so happy to know that through the atonement each and every one of her situations can improve. 

This is the last week of the transfer- a good chance that I could actually stay in Loughborough for another, which would make 9 months- by far my longest area. it's crazy to think that in less than 6 months I will have been finished with my mission. I don't like to think about it, but it's starting to feel real.  

How are Perkins, Jonny, Tyler, Bryson, etc doing? I miss those guys! I hope they are doing well! 

Please keep Alex, Anthea, and Melanie in your prayers, as these will be the investigators that we will focus on throughout the course of this week. 

This week was also absolutely emotinoal with 2 more terrible goodbye's- the goodbye's of Ivy and David. I love these people so much! I'm confident that they'll pave the way for the gospel to be brought to China as the prophets have prophesied. too many tears, but more than anything, I'm so grateful that God has placed people in our paths that have become some of my best friends in the world, people that I have loved more than I thought was possible to be able to love, and people who have helped me realize how truly lucky I am to be able to have the gospel. The best possible gift that anyone can receive. 

Well.. enjoy some pics that I'll send, I've finished another SD card so I'll send that soon ASAP. love you all so much!