I live in El Salvador, where I walk through the jungle and on dirt roads and drink my water out of bags. I wake up every morning and go talk to strangers all day in a language I didn't speak until four months ago. I talk about the Gospel of Jesus Christ
all day. I think about it all day. I live and breathe it. From 6:30 AM until 10:30 PM it is all I do. And I love it. Nothing else is as important.
One thing I have learned is that missions aren't just magic. You don't leave on your mission and become a perfect missionary who has no struggles and knows everything about the Gospel. I don't know if anyone is ever really 'ready' before they go, but I
do believe that anyone can be ready enough. God will help you. I can feel him answering my prayers and helping me understand the scriptures. This morning I was feeling a little discouraged about lack of success. I said a prayer to feel better and to understand
why I wasn't crazy successful when I feel like I am out every day working my hardest and being obedient. Shortly after my prayer, my comp started listening to general conference talks in Spanish. I wasn't paying attention, but suddenly one line from the second
talk in all of conference jumped out to me. "Sacrifice is more sacred than increase." That was what I needed to hear. Just a small experience, but I am sure God hears our prayers and answers them. We just have to listen. Maybe our efforts to build the kingdom
of God, however insignificant, are more important than how successful we are.
I am officially a missionary out of training! First the MTC, then 12 weeks of being a trainee, but now a full-fledged missionary. Crazy. Time flies fast.
I am happy to report that the song "Feliz Navidad" is still a thing outside of the US.
Also, any time people try to guess our ages they always think I much older then my comp, Elder Peck. He is 20 and I'm 18, but they usually peg me as 23 or 24. I am not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing.
Speaking of Elder Peck, he is in his last transfer and will be going home after this. I am his last companion, thus will be "killing" my own "father" in missionary lingo. Geesh. It is like Kylo Ren and Han Solo. Super sad, haha. Nobody tell me what happens
in the new Star Wars.
Also, I went to snag a pair of sweats and lifted them up only to find hundreds of little ants crawling on them. They had started a colony under the pants. That was disturbing. Lots of little white ant-larvae or something. I quickly deprived them of their
home, chucked the pants in a bucket of water, and painted the town red with RAID. I love RAID. Faithful friend in a metal can. It's the best. The ants are gone now.
This week was earthquake number two! We were teaching a lesson and suddenly it just felt like when you are trying to balance on one of those balance boards on a little cylinder drum, as close as I can describe it. Lots of back and forth moving around for
30 seconds or so. They say it was a 5.6. Anyways, I enjoy the earthquakes. They are lots of fun. Spice up the day a little bit.
People here are super nice. We visited one family of investigators that we had only taught maybe one lesson to, and they just welcomed us in and loaded us up with pupusas and tamales. I love El Salvador. So pretty everywhere and everyone is so nice.
I also love hearing things we do come back around to us. We went and bought some pupusas the other day and the guy that brought them out (Kevin) told us he had seen us passing before and we were speaking english, and he said that everyone was like "Whoah!
Who knows what they're saying." Another time this week we visited a less active family, and the sister told us that her aunt told her that a member of her Catholic congregation was saying how he had talked to us and that we were so pleasant and he enjoyed
the message very much. He is very Catholic, so I am not sure that he'll progress much, but it was fun to hear that he had talked about our visit with other people and they had talked about it with other people. The things we do and the influence we have on
people really do spread like crazy. People notice your example!
Things are going good here. If you feel down, read the Book of Mormon. It's the best.
Elder Harris
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