Hello family and friends.
Today started out as every good day should, with a bucket shower and hand-washing clothes.
Recently they announced the new mission president that will be coming in July. George Payne is his name, so shout out to the Payne cousins!
This week I did some interesting math. I have a little pedometer for fun to count my steps. So far I pretty easily average 13,000 steps a day. If I keep that up, and considering a stride length of 23 inches that I measured, that multiplies to be 3,440
miles walked in total in the mission. Quite a bit. That also means that I've gone a little over 800 miles so far, if my estimation is on point. Also, if I keep walking like this I will have 9 million 500 thousand steps by the end. Quite a lot of walking.
This week a kid asked me if I paint my arm hairs or if they come blonde. Kids also always love the 'growing and shrinking tie trick' where you put your thumb behind the end of it and have them blow and then pull the tie in, if that makes sense. Good times.
Another guy asked us if we sleep in our church clothes too. Yessirree, you better believe it.
This week I heard the song from Into the Spiderverse, Sunflower, I believe. I always enjoy hearing a song I recognize in passing. Also, this week we were walking home at night and heard rustling in the bushes. We shine the flashlight over to see what I
thought was a smallish cat. Nope! It's a mountain rat. Those things are big. Not Rodents of Unusual Size big, but pretty big.
Speaking of the subject line, this week I found some interesting plants. The first was a big thing of bamboo. We always see it, but this week we found some on the side of the road and dragged it over to a house to have them machete it up for us. Now I've
got a sweet bamboo staff. Feels like a Kung-Fu master. So that's legit. We also found a paste tree, which is a tree that grows these big crazy seed pods. You sort of break off the outside shell, then dump out the seeds, and what is left is a sort of spongey
material people use to make, well, sponges and to scrub yourself with when you shower. So we took some home and made some shower sponges! That was kind of cool.
Hey, now to the big part of this week! We had the baptism of Damary! She is super cool. I wrote a little about her last week. I was able to do the baptism, which was a lot of fun. I was kind of nervous I'd mess it all up, but it went well. Although it
was kind of funny, we got the chapel early to clean everything up, and they were doing construction to replace all the ceiling tiles! It was dusty and there was insulation and nails and things everywhere. Luckily the construction workers were nice and helped
us clean everything up in time. Anyways, she will do super great in the church. It is super cool to be able to be a part of Heavenly Father's plan for people.
One thing I have learned is a little bit of how to recognize the spirit. Sometimes I am sitting in the bus and keep getting the thought to talk to the person next to me. Sometimes I must admit I resist it a little and think, "No, they're on their phone
and don't want to talk," or "I don't know what to say," or who knows what. But, without fail, every time I have gone out of the way to talk to someone like that, I feel really good after and am happy to have done it. It has always gone really well, although
granted people here are just really friendly. Anyways, I think sometimes the spirit talks to us like that. Just with little thoughts to do something good that don't go away.
I also loved something I read this week from Thomas S. Monson in the 1987 general conf. It just spoke to me and really strengthened my testimony of living prophets. It was like, "Hey! This is for me!" Anyways, he said, "To reach, to teach, to touch the
precious souls whom our Father has prepared for His message is a monumental task. Success is rarely simple. Generally it is preceded by tears, trials, trust, and testimony." I just read that and my heart seemed to exclaim, "The church is true!" It was exactly
what I needed to hear. Thank goodness for the prophet.
Anyways, I am enjoying the $1 haircut, 2 cent bag of water, quarter bus fare life! It is the best. Coming back to US prices is going to kill me.
See you all later!
Elder Harris
Pictured are the bamboo staff, corn seed removing machine, sponge plant thing, Elder Harris in the pila, and a couple other random pictures. Also in the pictures is a kitten sleeping on a dog. I could sell that to a calendar company for some big bucks. Also the baptism of Damary, and the high-tech missionary communication in El Salvador. It is only mine on Fridays and the rest of
the time my comp has it. Having a phone again will be weird.
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