Well, I think that Las Vegas doesn't feel as hot as El Salvador, but this week started out strong with an average of about 108°. People told me the wind in Vegas is hot, which I did not believe. It's true, though! My companion compared it to the devil opening his oven door. However, it is not too bad because in the states there is air conditioning! Our AC started making a terrible constant grinding noise, though, so we had to either sleep hot or not sleep. To our great relief, after about two days the noise stopped . . . and the leaking started. I used my knowledge of flooded basements to pull up all the carpet by the AC and we tried to let it dry for a couple days, but we don't have a fan or anything, so it is medium-dry. We're seeing if we can get it fixed. Meanwhile it just smells like wet carpet.
Elder Webber and I are slowly and steadily getting on our feet here. It is a little tough because our area used to cover part of a spanish ward and two english wards, but now it is just the part spanish ward. The previous elders almost only had investigators in the english wards, and that combined with being white-washed in makes things a little difficult. And where it is only part of the ward, most of the members like the bishop live outside our area, which means that if we want to get to know them, we have to travel a lot.
Despite the set-backs, it has been a lot of fun. I love getting outside and exploring Vegas. It really is a melting-pot. People from all over the world. Unfortunately drugs are incredibly common where marijuana is legal. But I love especially when we get to go outside and ride places on our bikes. There are some people that just kind of wave us off and don't want to talk, but there are so many other people that are just crazy nice. I love it when people drive by and honk. Once we were out walking by some apartments and a lady walks out the office and says, "Elders!" She was a member in the Samoan ward who worked there and flagged us down to give us each water, gatorade, and some nuts. It was very sweet.
I love the members here that we have gotten to know. They are all so so nice. They are always giving us food and water.
An era came to an end this week. I was going strong for 20 years without social media, but I had to make a mission Facebook. Facebook is terrifying, though. I signed up and didn't sync any contacts or anything, but immediately it suggested people you might know including other missionaries here and people I knew from high school, including Grant Knight, Adam Budge, and Chipper Talbot! So that just makes me shiver. Creepy Facebook. I am very suspicious.
The other day we visited our first family of members in the ward, the first counselor and his family. They invited us in and we walk through the door . . . only to see a giant El Salvador flag! I was like, "No way!" Very first official visit and the family is from my home away from home! So I told them, and they were from cities I knew about! Super close to my area in Usulutan. But then it got even better because the grandma asks me if I knew President Garcia. He was my stake president! We ate lunch at his house EVERY DAY! Oh man, such a small world. And since then I've met even more people from El Salvador and people that served their missions there. That sure made me happy.
One last story. So my bike got here (Which is a blast, by the way! I love biking to appointments so much. Thanks Pres. Carver for hooking me up.) We needed a couple tools to put it together, though, so we thought we would find a member who could help us out. We didn't know any members, so we called a random person. He said to come over in 15 minutes. We took the bike over, and there is this nice Samoan family. The dad fixes bikes on the side and had a bunch of bikes and tools everywhere, and had it put together perfectly in like two minutes! Then he even helped tune up my companion's bike. We could tell it was a less active family that probably had some struggles in life, but I they were so nice. Then the wife asked if we could give her husband a blessing of health, which we were happy to do. They told us if we ever need food to come over. I think our visit meant something to them. It is just interesting to me that we thought we were calling some random member, but it turned out to be the perfect family to visit. I think if we are just trying to do our best, the Lord really directs us in our life even more than we realize. I love this gospel.
Elder Harris
Here I have us doing an object lesson, the giant ferris wheel on the strip, a cool wall, bike day, our flooded apartment, and the previous elders massive empty water bottle collection.
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