April 17th

So this is gonna be a lot of photos. And idk how much info. We shall see what comes out.

Today we played sand volleyball at a pit that Sister Lamb remembered from the last time she served in this stake-Stevenage. It was sooooo fun and now my legs are dead. Afterward we went to a Roman Bath site underneath the motorway with some members. It was pretty cool. I'll send pics. Point being with all of this, all of the sudden there is no time left to email...oops. So we will see how fast I can type!

This week was filled with miracles. Absolutely filled. This is one of the most special weeks of the year.

Tuesday we saw Nora. She is doing so great. Reading and praying and changing every day. She is fantastic. Still so new to her and so it's a slow process. But she enjoyed church last week! While we were biking there two guys stopped us. They recognized sister lamb from stevenage 9 months ago. So crazy. (Side note we taught them again later that week and put them both on date wahoo! But they might have to be dropped cuz of other reasons. So we are not teaching them anymore. But random cool miracle)

We quickly biked back to a pi appointment. His name was Daryl and we called him from the phone randomly. (Ps if you ever give a missionary your number it will stay there for 12 years and missionaries will call again). So we called and met him in the phone and then saw him this past Tuesday! He is super cool. Craziest lesson though. To begin, he pulled out a TRIPLE COMBINATION! Book of Mormon, doctrine and covenants, and pearl of great price. He said, "alright where do you want to start?" Uhhhhhhhhhh. What?!!?!?!?! Where'd you get that?? Are you a member? What is going on. He said "okay I have a question. Turn to Mosiah (said the name a super weird way) chapter 15. Why does it say that Jesus Christ is both the Father and the Son?" Uhhhhh. .... .... preach my gospel did not cover this in lesson 1. Um. Good question. So. Yeah. Man such a fun lesson though. And he will be on date next lesson! Just have to help him realize a few things...

Zone conference was great. Everyone was mega hyped. We sang our mission hymn number 41 - I was hitting the piano as hard as I could but I couldn't be heard over the singing. Sister Stevens was in tears and President had the biggest grin on his face. Everyone is taking the finding challenge very well and so much excitement has been created. In our zone this last week, everyone found an average of 7 new investigators. WHAT. Just sit for a moment and think how mind blowing it is. Trust me it's super. Also gave a training about being devastated when investigators don't keep commitments. Called our investigators peeps and everyone loved it. Sister Lamb's doing all the way. She did super well.

Also finally taught Anderson all of the Plan of salvation. He is struggling a bit with Adam and Eve being "set up" (sorry mate I don't understand that one fully either) but led the discussion from Resurrection on. Every question we asked he just led perfectly to the correct doctrine. Ah it was wonderful. Okay and that is such a miracle in itself. Anderson runs a kiosk in the mall selling Brazilian food. He is the only one there and it's 7 days a week for 8 hours. There are people coming all the time to buy food and so forth, so we don't officially schedule appointments with him, just set aside time and show up. Every time we ago (unless we planned just a stop by) but every time we go to teach a lesson, no one comes to the kiosk for a full hour. It's completely empty. Not a phone call, not anyone. So we get to sit down and have a full lesson with no interruptions. What a cool miracle. And he is moving his kiosk to a different part of the mall (more people will walk past them) and he will have enough customers to hire an assistant who can work on Sunday and Anderson can go to church with us!!!! Although Anderson told his assistant about the Book of Mormon and stuff, and now his assistant wants to visit the church too...well. You can just take turns? Idk. Very neat miracle though.

We were walking through campus and another two guys stopped us. My goodness it was reverse finding this week - everyone came up to us! They had a lot of questions and confusion surrounding mormons. We had to clear up so much about the religion. No we only have 1 mom. Yes we still go to school. Yes we can eat meat. Yes we do believe in Jesus Christ. Yes we can listen to music. Even one direction. Yes we like to have fun. Man you wouldn't believe the confusion some people have. A missionary was relating a story to me, hahahah i was dying with laughter. This is what happened (sorry tangent)

*missionary talking to random person on the street* *random person begins shying away*

Random person: I'm sorry I'm not interested. I serve God not mammon.

Missionary: What? Mammon? No we are Mormon not mammon!!!

(Hahahahahha refer to bible scripture for further understanding)

Anyway we chatted with these two guys for a little bit. It was so fun. They knew the Bible really well. It was a little bit of a Bible bash, but not too much where you can't get anywhere and just need to leave. Just one of those lessons where you need scripture evidence form the Bible to back up everything you said. ITS SO FUN! I love it. And it's amazing how the Holy Ghost brings scriptures to mind all the time. You just feel so boss quoting "knowing God" in John 17:3 and .God is love" in 1 John and so forth. Plus we have the spirit and that does bring the confounding of men! So you do feel pretty confident in those situations. They were really cool though. Luke and Curtis (they live out of our area so we have to refer them :(...). We had to leave to visit a recent convert and they asked if we could come back later that night and share more. We relented and said yes. Well that was definitely the fastest bike ride I have ever gone on. We skidded back and taught them the Plan of Salvation. There were a few doctrine disagreements...but they are definitely interested in reading the Book of Mormon and that's a good start!

We were sitting on a train traveling to go finding with the Stevenage sisters. A man behind us burped rather loudly and said "Pardon." Which prompted Sister Lamb to turn around and say, "Oh that's okay, I burp all the time! It's perfectly natural." A conversation ensued between the two of them and by the end of it, Mark had a Book of Mormon and lesson 1 pamphlet. I was shaking with silent laughter. It was so funny. We were telling Elder Auras (elder we work with in Northampton. He is a happy German. All you need to know) about it and we said, "What a conversion story, it all stated with a burp!" To which he replied, "Well that's what you get when you open your mouth!" Lolololololol

And of course Easter was wonderful. An incredibly special spirit the entire day. We really enjoyed it. Some kind members had us over for an Easter dinner so we were taken care of. Even got an Easter egg 😁

Great spiritual thought that I learned this week that I absolutely loved. We were looking for doctrine concerning unity and I stumbled on a talk given in October 2014. It is called "rescue in Unity". It is a great talk. The speaker takes Mark 2:1-5, the story of the man with palsy who is lowered through the roof into the room for Christ to heal him. He spoke of 4 people helping the man get into position for Jesus to heal him if any one of them had not completed the task given to them, or if they had not worked in unity to lower the sick man down, the man would've fallen and not been able to be healed by Jesus Christ (as we know). However they all worked in unity and because of it, the man could be healed by Jesus. Two thoughts I really loved from the talk...

In order to assist the Savior, we have to work together in unity and in harmony. Everyone, every position, and every calling is important. We have to be united in our Lord Jesus Christ.

In conclusion, may I share with you one more hidden treasure found in this scripture account. It is in verse 5: “When Jesus saw their faith” (emphasis added). I had not noticed this in the past--their faith. Our combined faith will also affect the well-being of others.