Aug. 17, 2019 -- Tattoos, Gummy Bears, and Present Subjunctive

Greetings one and all,

Oh man, one more day until El Salvador! I am way excited. I enjoyed the MTC but am ready for something new. Get to fly out at 11:30 at night and get to El Salvador 11:30 the next day! Crazy.

Anyway, one unusual event was when for some reason we got emails early this week that we would have to move rooms. I am glad it happened now and not earlier, though, because we are close enough to leaving that we just aren't unpacking and are living out of our suitcases for a few days. We bid farewell to R5 and moved to the next building over, R3. They moved a bunch of Sisters out of R3, so all our bathrooms have "Women's" signs on them. Our new room is larger, though, and only has four beds! We lost Elders Madson and Cannon to another room, but I am enjoying the extra space. And we have our own desks and bigger closets! Kind of nice. Let it be known that some Elders are more organized than others, haha. I enjoy the organized lifestyle, but doesn't always work out with a big group. Here's a bunch of guys in our zone before the R5 move. There's some good guys in the MTC.

Anyways, we moved to our new room and immediately checked the outlet boxes like any good missionaries would do. First one: empty. Vents: empty. Second outlet box: score! We found a cough drop, some rocks, a Hi-Chew, an old Tide Pod, and, best of all, a tattoo sleeve! I have no idea why someone would have that in the MTC, but it is ours now until we leave it for the next elders. It is strange the things you do for fun in the MTC, though. Things like eating your cereal with chocolate milk instead of normal milk, seeing who can jump and hit their head on the ceiling, etc. I can finally dunk pretty consistently, but we are not allowed to grab the rim in the gym, so that is sad. Also, before my mission I never once used a shirt pocket. Now they are like the most useful things ever.

One of my favorite parts of the MTC is seeing people from back home. Andrew Anderson and Braedon Iverson both got here this week. Also got to talk to Jason Lawson today. Here's us hanging out in the laundry room.

Spanish is pretty good. We are learning all sorts of crazy things like present subjunctive, conditional, and imperfect tenses. Subjunctive is supposedly one the most difficult things in Spanish, so it is kind of cool that we are learning it. Not that we are that great at knowing when to use it or speaking without long pauses for thinking, but we do alright. They say that by the time you leave the MTC, the world or the government would consider you fluent in Spanish. It is way fun to be able to carry a conversation. I am 100% sure that the speed will be insanely fast compared to what we hear here, though, so hopefully we will survive. Grant Knight taught me a game that I taught my Spanish class called "Guess the Latino." Before class we choose a "Latino" that is only allowed to speak Spanish. At the end of class the teacher tries to guess who the Latino was. The strategy for us is for everyone to speak Spanish so the teacher can't guess. We got pretty good at it and would go our entire 3 hour class block without a word of English. We even learn new Spanish in Spanish. Anyways. The deal was that if we win, our teacher has to tell us a mission story, so we earned quite a few that way.

Anyways. Not too much more to write right now. Probably a bunch next week with arriving in El Salvador. The last of the old MTC buildings are being torn down as we speak. We decided the coolest thing ever would be getting two of the track-hoes they use and making them fight. They have different attachments like the classic bucket, wrecking ball, or a hole punching thing. Someday if I am incredibly lucky I'm definitely making this happen. Battle bots on steroids.

Oh, one last thing of a sort of spiritual note. We had our final practice lesson in Spanish the other day. Lately they'd been a little rough. You may remember the "bored and confused" lesson from last week. That was followed by the "uncomfortable" lesson and the "I didn't really feel anything lesson." The uncomfortable lesson was when we shared a scripture that started with a phrase like "Wo unto you for your unbelief." The part we were talking about was later in the verse where Christ talks about how with faith, anything is possible. They just thought we were calling her out for unbelief, though, so that was very awkward. Be careful with scriptures everyone. We were kind of despairing because we were really trying our best and felt like our Spanish was better than ever, so we just didn't know what to do. Anyways, we went into our last lesson a little afraid. We got there though, and talked and really connected with our person. It was great! We just felt happy and thought they did too. We crossed our fingers as we went to check our survey results. Lo and behold, she had marked EVERY GOOD FEELING AVAILABLE! Happiness, love, comfort, positive new thoughts, you name it. I'm not sure what changed, but it was amazing! I guess the lesson is that if you want people to get anything from your lesson, you really have to connect with them and show them that you care and are a real person, not just a badge. Tender mercy that we were finally able to nail another lesson. Best one yet, I think. I think she forgave us for the unbeliever thing too. We clarified that that part wasn't about her, haha, and I think she understood that we just don't know what we're doing.

These last couple pictures include me performing my favorite physical feat of balance. By the way, my other hidden talent is my Gollum impression. Everyone was very impressed with that. "My looovely, my sweeeeet, my precious!" Haha. We also have the Belt of Truth from the PV 10 priests quorum! Love that belt. If you are familiar with the armor of righteousness scriptures, one part is "Gird up your loins with truth." Thus, the belt of truth was born. The guys at home engraved it up for me and it is way cool. Thanks so much guys! The last picture is me with a gummy bear that has literally (I kid you not) been stuck to a lamppost here for over a week. I have no idea how it is still there. It's like magic.

Elder Harris