Finding, finding, finding

August 8
Hiya!!!

Is summer really coming to a close??  I keep forgetting it's summer.  The days are all kind of the same here.  When does school start?  Can't believe it's almost over!!  

Also appreciate air conditioning.  There is no air conditioning in England.  No one wants to pay for it to only use it for the 2 weeks when it is hot.  Except we did find one restaurant in town that has a sign on the wall that it is a fully air conditioned restaurant.  Ohhh posh.

Yes so thank you for praying for Selam!  We weren't really teaching anyone else, so she was the only one that needed prayers.  Unfortunately all of our people decided they didn't want to be baptized anymore...not exactly sure why.  But that's okay!  Because Sister Whitehouse and I get to find more!!  And we found a Nigerian Irish family.  It is the perfect amount of African and Irish.  I love it.  

Africans are my favorite.  Except they all show up to appointments 1 hour late.  I remember this week we stopped by a family from Nigerian.  Dad's name is Loveday and mom's name is Joy.  Haha classic.  They were all in their kitchen with their four kids and another African family was over with their 3 kids.  So much in one tiny room.  We went into the kitchen and tried talking to them.  Bless Sister Whitehouse, she never worked with Africans before and so was a bit overwhelmed with all of the chaos.  We tried getting a return appointment set up with the first family and get the contact details for the second, but we were struggling.  There were too many people talking and we could not convince them to give us their information.  Eventually I got a little prompting that they weren't giving us their details because they weren't feeling the Spirit.  So I went the loud American route and started to bear my testimony of the truthfulness of this work.  It was amazing--everyone immediately went deadly silent and listened while I was able to finish.  I told them how much this gospel meant to my family.  And how Jesus Christ himself was leading this church today.  When we finished, they gave us our contact details immediately and we are actually seeing the second family tonight.  The dad's name is Joseph.  I'll give you an update next week.

Such a neat experience though.  The Spirit does wonders.  And I love being with Africans.  :)

So yes our Nigerian Irish family!!  Esther (mom), Chrisianna (13), Denice (11), Derek (9).  The dad is still in Ireland and is coming to England at the end of this week.  Sister Guimaraes and I ran into Esther and Chrisianna on the street the day before transfers.  We were finally able to see them for the first time this past Wednesday.  We met in the library (little nervous about that--we have been stood up for lessons too many times when it's not at their house).  But to a slight surprise, Esther and her 3 children came into the library!  We had a How to Begin Teaching and showed them the Book of Mormon.  Basically they just moved to England are looking for a Christian church to join.  :)  Hehe we can help you with that!!!!  The kids asked awesome questions too!  We were able to see them again on Saturday with a member.  We taught them L1--all about Joseph Smith.  I think they really liked it.  All of them are committed to pray about it.  Even the kids.  Watch it'll probably be the kids who pull the parents to baptism. Be as the little children!  They weren't able to come to church because they flew back to Ireland for a week to say goodbye to their friends.  But hopefully they will be back in time next week!  I am SO EXCITED for them!!  I love families.  

Another awesome miracle!  Jewels Pixie Johnson.  A former, she actually referred herself back to the church.  She met the missionaries (who served in our area before) in July 2014.  She loved the Book of Mormon and all of the lessons that were taught.  Unfortunately during that time, her father passed away and she lost contact with the missionaries.  Throughout that time and up to now, she has been reading the Book of Mormon and the Bible.  She told us that she used to listen to crude music but felt bad about it after reading the Book of Mormon and stopped listening to the music.  So she is already basically living the Doctrine of Christ.  Alrighty then.  And she really really wants to be baptised.  Alrighty then.  Yes I think I fell out of my chair about 19 times that lesson.  Such a miracle.  Only one problem.  She has a phobia of going outside and has been unable to come to church.  She is actually meeting with someone to get over that fear and come to church eventually.  Wow.  Okay.  So her goal right now is to make it to church.  I don't even know if we need to help her!  Super grateful to Heavenly Father that we get to help in this process.  We are just praying every day that she can conquer her fear--build more faith--and make it to church!!!

These are our two main focuses right now.  We will keep searching!  

Nishtha has been hard to get ahold of.  She is not going to be able to keep progressing because she can't wrap her head around who God is.  And frankly she is not very open to the idea.  She is trying to look at the gospel purely philosophically and it is not going to work..

That is about the week though!!

Oh OH Coral!!  Coral is a recent convert who got baptized right before I came to Colchester and she went to the temple on Saturday!!!  She did baptisms for the dead and absolutely LOVED it.  We talked to her and she said, she was the happiest girl in the world.  haha you could tell she was feeling the Spirit all day.  Such a good experience for her.  She wants to go back asap.

Alright I will talk to you all next week!!  LOVE AND MISS YOU

Sister Soulier 

and my companion is a cat whisperer.  I don't know how she does it but she has a talent.