April 11

GOOD AFTERNOON EVERYONE!

It has been some BEAUTIFULLY sunny days here in a England. Unheard of really. It has been stunning. All the Utah weather has been blown over here. We had companionship study outside on the grass and it was simply heavenly. Our cheeks even got pink from sun. THEY GOT PINK! I haven't stopped smiling because of it.

I realise I haven't told you about Anderson yet! Well maybe not much at least. He is so great and has 80000000 million questions. My goodness now I have a few questions of my own. Anderson works at a Brazilian stand at the galleria (local mall). Sister Matthews was on an exchange with Sister Cardoso when they stopped by to get some delicious Brazilian food. Sister Cardoso being the great missionary she is, immediately invited Anderson to come to church and meet with the missionaries. They introduced the Book of Mormon and Anderson got so excited because he had seen the Book of Mormon years ago, but wasn't interested at reading it at the time. It as he says, luck doesn't come more than twice. So now he reads the Book of Mormon all the time while working and tells everyone he sees to read the Book of Mormon to. Ah I love Brazilians.

I will just give you some snippets of what he says so you can see how great he is. He doesn't have a big religious background, but thinks things through really clearly. For example, we were teaching the importance of having priesthood authority to baptise. John the Baptist was able to baptise Jesus Christ because he had the authority. Which caused Anderson to ask, "So where did John get the priesthood?" Ummm. Hmm. Never thought of that before. (Turns out an angel gave it to him) (says in the doctrine of covenants). So yeah super cool he is doing great. Just had to give up coffee!

Another miracle with Anderson. We were discussing the Book of Mormon and out of the blue he started talking about wine and how wine is so great because it is made so carefully, and so forth. Super random. But then he said of his own accord (mind you has NOT been taught the word of wisdom yet) that he has decided to stop drinking alcohol until he finishes the Book of Mormon. Well. The book will definitely take a lifetime to read then! So very cool though!!! Crazy crazy miracle!!

Also miracle - Henry came to church. Ah that guy. He is from Ghana and works at a barber shop. Basically describes exactly who he is. He came to church this week. Ah fabulous. He is just super busy and so can't meet often. Please pray that he can be baptized at the end of April. He has been taught a couple of things.

Also Nora came to church :) :) :) :) :). Wow she has an incredible desire to find purpose in her life. However it is hard for her to recognize that God is even there---let alone what He wants for her. We are learning to teach very very simply. I'll attach a pic of her. She is darling.

Other than that, the mission is going crazy for finding my goodness. Zones everywhere are breaking records. One zone found 62 in a week, another beat it by finding 83 and finally Northampton this week found 88 new investigators. That is 7+ a companionship. THAT IS INSANE! The standard is 3 per companionship. So yes the mission is going hard. Just praying these people will stick around. If anything, it's boosting faith for sure.

Anyway, Sister Lamb is absolutely wonderful and an incredibly hard worker (I'm talking out finding at 8:45 in the dark) (however in retrospect it's not the safest thing to do in the world.) She is a super hard worker and teaching me a ton!

So this week we had fast and testimony meeting. Oh man. Let's just say at the end of the meeting, President Elvidge (stake president) stood up and said, "Now we are grateful that we can have testimony meetings in which people can share their personal thoughts. And also grateful that we can be a close family and keep the things said in our hearts and heads." (Basically trying to say, well, what is said in this room stays in this room!) There were so many confessions about everything and everything in between. We were dying. Well, good thing the church is true! And makes for a good journal entry.

Sister Matthews has made it safe and sound home. Although she sent me a video of her looking at meat. Hm. Don't know how to respond. Looks like it'll be a good homecoming party though with all the food.

That's all folks! Tune in next week for another exciting email.

Cheers for reading it all!!!

LOVE YOU

Sister Soulier