Aug. 25, 2020 -- So Many Small Miracles

Hello out there!

It is always a good week out here in Las Vegas. So many cool things to tell about. One interesting thing is that in our apartment we don't have a table to eat at. We could sit in our office chairs at our desks, but that seems sort of weird. As a result I have spent the last two months eating every meal standing up behind our little bar that doesn't have any stools. Kind of odd to realize I haven't done any sitting-eating in a long time.

One other thing I really liked was a trainers' meeting we went to with the mission president now that I have my brand new missionary! He is the best. Super hard worker. But President Rodarte told all the trainers, "I hope you know that I didn't assign you your companions for convenience. It was actually very inconvenient. It was many hours and days praying. I hope you know that God put you with your companion for a reason." I just thought that was super cool and makes me want to take my responsibility to love and help my companion--and all future companions and people I am in contact with--more seriously. There are no coincidences.

One interesting thing when teaching is that with almost every family here that has kids, the kids understand english way better than spanish and the parents are the reverse. It is odd because we are never sure if we should speak only spanish or switch back and forth or what. Kind of crazy.

Lately I have been determined not to let opportunities to talk to everyone slip me by. I think quarantine made me a little rusty street contacting, but it is so cool. Here are some stories about how it went:

Story 1: The Ring

Elder Parker and I were about to leave an appointment and bike back home. We were both a little frustrated about how with quarantine rules, it is really hard to find new people to talk to. We determined to bike back home, but keep our eyes peeled for any opportunity to talk to people. We were biking along, and out of the corner of my eye down a side street, I saw a younger woman standing in the road looking at the gutter. It would have been easy to shrug it off and continue straight on our path, but I found myself turning the handlebars and over we went. We asked if she was okay, and she was crying and said she lost her ring. We immediately started helping her and her husband who we also found to look for it. I was looking for it, and Elder Parker had started saying a prayer with the woman. Suddenly I yelled, "found it!" right as he said, "amen." It was super cool and was hidden in some leaves in the gutter. We talked to them and got their phone number. The next day we called and introduced the Book of Mormon over the phone. We asked them if there was a time we could come by and bring them a copy. They said, "What time is your church? Maybe it would be better if we come and you just give it to us there?" We were of course thrilled with the idea. They will be going to church with the english missionaries next week.

Story 2: The Balcony

One day as we biked home I thought about a guy that lives in our apartment complex. He is often on his second floor balcony and we wave a lot as we bike back home. I thought, "Man, how cool would it be to just contact him while he is on his balcony?" Just then, we pulled in to the complex and there he was, up on his balcony, as if God was testing my mental commitment. "Here goes!" I thought and pulled over and yelled, "Hi!" above the noise of the air conditioner generators. He was very nice and we got his phone number and he said we would be welcome to come over! Contacting someone on another floor of a building . . . check.

Story 3: The Moon

It is so crazy how God works. We were at our apartment at night and the zone leaders called about some announcement. At the end, one said, "You should look at the moon tonight; it's beautiful!" It was just before time to be back inside, so we decided to take a lap of the building to see the moon. We went outside . . . and couldn't see it anywhere. The moon trip was a bust. But, then we were walking back and saw someone come out with their dog. I said, "Hey, you're Ceasar, right?" because I thought he was someone we talked to once. He was not Ceasar, oops. But we talked for a minute and let us pet his dog. Then he said, "I think I should let you guys know by this point in the conversation that I'm a member. I just moved down here for school." He was recently married and starting to go to UNLV. He said that they had seen us before and wanted to figure out where and when church was. "I was talking about going to church with my wife," he said, "and I have a been a little less active, but my wife isn't a member--yet." It just made me so happy to meet this new little family and the wife wants to learn about the church and we never would have met them if we hadn't gone out to look at the moon.

Story 4: Dinner

Another day we were waiting outside for someone who was bringing us dinner. As we were waiting, I noticed someone sitting in front of the building messing around on his phone. As we stood there, I kept feeling like I needed to talk to him, even though I didn't have any real excuse to. Suddenly I felt myself drifting over thinking, "I have no idea what I am doing or what I am going to say to this man." I asked him what brought him outside on a hot day like today. He responded that he only spoke spanish, to which I said, "Perfecto! Nosotros tambien!" Everyone always gets a little taken aback when two white guys jump into a spanish conversation. He was interested in what we do and we had a good time talking with him. We got his phone number and are going over tomorrow! With any luck, soon we'll be teaching our entire apartment complex.

Story 5: Solar Energy

Last story is that one day we were sitting outside and a guy came and contacted us to see if we wanted a side hustle selling solar energy door to door. We politely declined, haha. However, later in the week we saw him walking with a co-worker, and he tried to see if we want to sell solar again. His buddy said, "No! They're missionaries!" Then he turned to us and said that he wanted to schedule an appointment because he once knew a member of the church and wanted to learn more. Crazy cool. We were very happy to accept.

So anyway. God is so crazy involved in our lives and in planning our opportunities and seemingly random interactions. It blows me away. He has a plan for each one of us. If we keep our eyes open and listen, it is amazing what He will help us do.

Elder Harris

Pictured is me on exchanges with Elder Webster, the famous Ole Bull statue, and a lighter we were messing with for a Facebook post.

Aug. 18, 2020 -- A Scent of Citrus

Time ticks on, and Elder Harris sweats in the Las Vegas Sun with a smile on his face. 107 is the coldest day here this week. 

So, you may be wondering why our apartment smells citrus-y, as per the subject line. I will explain. You may remember that we have had some air conditioner leakage awhile back, flooding our carpet. This has probably happened to some degree or another two or three times. Because of that I wasn't too concerned when I got out of the shower one day and Elder Parker said, "We have a wet spot on our carpet!" I said that it was just the AC acting up again and we didn't have to worry about it too much. It would dry up pretty quick. "That's too bad," we thought as the carpet spot slowly grew to span the hallway. "What a pity," we mused as the water traveled over and into the closet, soaking my laundry bag. "Perhaps we should be concerned," we said as the water started running down the walls and out of the light switch socket. You could hear it dripping inside the walls. Soon every step caused a small splash and the doorframe on the bathroom swelled up so much that you can't even shut the door anymore. We called the apartment office and said, "We might have a small leak in our airconditioner..." It turns out it wasn't that. A toilet 2 stories above us had exploded, and all the water just came pouring down. It was rather unfortunate. As we did our studies we heard a loud, "wump!" outside. This was followed by another two or three wumps. We looked out the window and saw carpet padding cascading from the upper floors. The next day someone finally came and looked at our carpet. They pulled out our pads, and after going another several days with damp carpet and no pads, they came in today and got us new pads and shampooed everything. Maybe it is all just a blessing in disguise, because our carpet probably hasn't been cleaned for 20 years. Thus this citrus smell. 

This week we also got to go to church again. I think that was my fourth time in about 5 months, so I am feeling pretty active, haha. We missed the bus, so we biked about 30 minutes in our suits, but I love getting the fresh air. It made me sad, though, we had a meeting, so we were at the church early. We ended up doing a ton of cleaning because someone had just trashed the yard of the church. They had pulled all the trash out of the dumpster. We cleaned up beer cans, human poop, and worse. It just made me sad that someone would do that.

But! There are lots of other people in the world that are really good. We taught some members the other day and they gave us a whole tray of muffin and cinnamon rolls, which was super nice. We also went to a bike shop called Bike World to fix up a flat Elder Parker had. We fixed it at the store, and asked if we could borrow a wrench. They gave us a cool one that could fit like 8 different nut sizes and just told us to keep it. 

Apparently I have continued my sleep-teaching, probably scaring my poor comp to death. He said he got up to go to the bathroom and as he walked past my bed, in his words, my large frame that hangs off my tiny bed just sat up like a robot, I mumbled something about "good lesson," shook an imaginary persons hand, and rolled over and fell back to sleep. I didn't remember any of that, so that was humorous.

This week we brought someone we are teaching a tie and taught him to tie it so he can wear it to church. He seemed really excited. 

One thing I really enjoyed this week is when I was praying one night about how I could help a certain missionary and be a good leader. Suddenly I found my thoughts taken to imagining his desires to serve God, his willingness to be reassigned and return to his mission, and thoughts of his family that must love him and worry about him. I just felt impressed to love him better. I suddenly came to the very clear realization that the Holy Ghost had guided all those thoughts to me the entire time. It was almost like, "Aha! You almost got away with me thinking that those thoughts were my own, but I caught you! They were from you the whole time!" It was just a sudden but clear realization that I had been receiving some pretty clear revelation. And it wasn't anything earth-shaking or ground-breaking. Really pretty simple. But I was very grateful that God helped me recognize it.

The work goes forward. I enjoy it and only ever find myself frustrated that there isn't ever enough time in the day to do all the missionary work I want to get done. Sometimes I catch myself feeling like that, just that I want more time to work harder, but then I realize that that is probably a good thing, and I'm not doing so badly.

Have a good week.

Elder Harris

Pictured are all the tupperwares we have to bring back to members that give us so much good food, double-decker bus time, and me hanging out with my crush (haha). Today we also drove past a crazy house that is like a combination of hoarding and a mini-golf course without any actual golfing. They had a giant dinosaur statue, a ferrari, manequins, a Chili's restaurant pepper, a roller-coaster on the roof, a small mount rushmore, and a million other strange things. I took pictures of this original batmobile and a small space-shuttle. Kind of crazy!

Aug. 11, 2020 -- Day in the Life

Good morning everybody. 

This week has been one of several firsts:

- First time locking myself out of the apartment and needing the zone leaders to come let us back in

- First time teaching a lesson to a white person. For being out 13 months, that was an odd realization.

- First confirmed sleep-talking. Elder Parker said he woke up and heard me saying, "That's great, now next in the lesson..." before drifting back off. Teaching in your sleep. Must be some sort of new level.

Elder Parker and I also figured out that if you hit the pressure plate sensor behind the apartment gate at just the right spot, you can open it! No more walking through gates for us. Today for his first ever field P-Day we went to SeaQuest, which was fun. He is super cool and we get along well. We have little push-up contests every night before bed, and so far my best was to tie. We're getting up there in the numbers though. He got me some good muscle twitches in the pecs, but I got him back with my Mike Tyson prison cell leg day. We also beat me and Elder Webber's personal hackey-sack record. Shout-out to Noah Stuart for hooking up the hackey-sack life clear back since the first MTC days.  

Our district is super cool. Only one guy in the district is actually originally called to our mission, and everyone else is reassigned from various Spanish-speaking countries. We have four pairs of missionaries in one ward, although one pair also covers an english ward. That's the most missionaries in any ward in the whole mission! Kind of cool. The members are so good and are so willing to help with the work and feed us even though they have crazy lives.

If you remember the first person I invited to be baptized here, it was the super nice guy from El Salvador (home away from home). This Sunday we didn't have church, but a member brought him to the church building and we gave him a tour. He even dressed up all in white and had got some new shoes. He is such a solid, sincere, guy. His baptism is becoming more and more of a reality! 

The bishop and I were talking about pupusas from El Salvador, and he said how they always visit this one restaurant called Boomwalos . . . which I have totally been to! Such a small world.

Missionary work is tough sometimes, but so worth it. Wouldn't be anywhere else. Such a happy, clean, wholesome life. It is hard to not just feel good when you get up with the sunrise, for fun you crank out a solid workout, and then you work hard all day. You go to bed and it just feels great. Very happy. Seeing someone come a little closer to Christ is just indescribably cool. Nothing else is quite like it.

God be with you till we meet again,

Elder Harris

Aug. 4, 2020 -- A Little Shenanigans

Hello one and all,

What a week. Let me jump in with some awesome stories.

We are currently teaching one guy that requested a Book of Mormon after seeing an ad on Facebook. At first we thought he was not interested at all because he was pretty evasive when we tried to get in contact to deliver the book. Eventually we decided to send him a link to the app. A week or so later we checked in to see how he was doing and he was in 1 Nephi 18! That was so awesome because very rarely do people have the willpower to just get going themselves. We set up an appointment and had a solid lesson. Then we had a second lesson and gave him a chapel tour with the Elders quorum president, and the guy we're teaching gave us a ride to his own lesson! We did the tour and invited him to be baptized, and he said yes! He is in 2 Nephi now and is super cool. Very excited to keep working with him.

We got to go to church for my first time in six weeks this week. I loved it so much. Just felt like going home. Kind of reminded me of the American prisoners of war in WWII that just wanted to hold an American flag. I just wanted to go to church. Random funny thing is that the Elders quorum president gave us a ride in his fancy customized truck, and we asked what a device on the dash was. It was his police radar detector to avoid them. He also had an incredibly powerful speaker system. With giant subs.

One other cool guy we are teaching is a master chef. Just insane. Won all sorts of awards and things. He showed us how he cut one carrot into an intricate tropical bird. He got interested in the church when he was living on the street and found a Book of Mormon in the trash can. He would read it, and eventually got it stolen from his backpack. Then, much later, he saw on Facebook that he could request one, and so he did. He is so cool and has had a tough life, but it is crazy to me that God could have some missionary feel prompted to give a Book of Mormon to someone on the street, knowing that that person might not care, but that they would toss it in the trash at just the right time that our guy could find it and change his life. The conversion power of the Book of Mormon is crazy. So so powerful.

Last night we got a call super late and they said they had transfer news for us. Elder Webber and I were a little nervous because we'd been enjoying things together. They read mine first and said I would be staying here . . . and training a new missionary fresh out of the home MTC! I would also be the new district leader. I was immediately super excited to train but also a little terrified. I still feel so new, so this'll be exciting. My companion is moving and training in another area. I am now in charge of the four sets of missionaries in our Spanish ward and have no real idea how to be a district leader, so this is some uncharted territory. I kept teasing Elder Webber because for some reason the stake presidency, bishop, and mission president are coming to the next district meeting. He had to plan it, and now suddenly roles have been switched and my first ever district meeting has all these people coming. Careful teasing people, haha.

So anyway, this morning we picked up my first son, and I am so excited! Big shoutout to cousin CONNER TORMAN because that is pretty much exactly who my companion is. I even checked his nametag to make sure it wasn't him and I wasn't being pranked. Looks exactly like him and is just a super solid and cool dude. I am crazy excited to be here with him. Elder Parker is from Cedar Hills and we graduated the same year. He did distance running.

So anyway, we are on our way back to the apartment in a mini van, and then we pull up to an intersection and . . . the van dies. Totally out of gas. It wouldn't even shift into neutral to push it, and there we are stuck in a three lane road unable to move. My companion is getting a great start at mission life. We had a great idea to run to a nearby gas station and fill up three water bottles with gas. There we are in the middle of the road hand pouring gas into the tank, and it has those crazy double seals so you have to reach your fingers way back in to let the gas flow down. It is like one shot glass of gas at a time and it is splashing everywhere and all over our hands. A total gangster pulls up and just says, "bro," hands us a funnel, and walks back to his car and drives away. We filled it with all three water bottles, and it still didn't start. Then we had to buy a gas can and buy more gas and then fill the car. So a 20 minute drive home took about 2 hours. Super fun though.

Now we're here waiting to see what fate brings our way.

Elder Harris

One thing I forgot to mention is that we went to Denny's for lunch one time and someone anonymously paid for all of us! People are so nice.

We also talked to a cool old guy in his garage that showed us his trial bike motorcycle and all his machining tools. We just talked to him in the street and he showed us all his stuff. He pulls the motorcycle with his smart car and rides it in competitions. So many cool people in Las Vegas.

Here are some pictures for this week. Us with our gas water bottles, a crazy solar thing, and a Lamborghini.

July 28, 2020 -- This week

Another week in the desert. Yesterday we did some service for a super cool member family that has 7 kids. The oldest is on a break before being reassigned as a missionary. We helped cement in some cement blocks to extend a wall and stuccoed a big chunk of the wall smooth. It was a lot of fun. As we went to pull away on our bikes afterwards I thought that this was the perfect moment to put the newfound skill Elder Webber and I have been working on to the test . . . wheelies! As we roll down the street I pop the front tire into the air for one, two, three seconds! I'm leaning pretty far back and am feeling pretty confident but then everything skids out from under me and I am lying in the street. I was completely fine and just jumped back up, but then the whole family and some random guy in his truck that had just pulled around the corner are all like, "Elder, are you okay?" So now I will not be remembered as 'The Cool Elder Who Did a Wheelie,' but 'The Goofy Missionary Who Crashed His Bike on the Flat Road in Front of Our House." Pride cometh before the fall, haha.

We called an older gentleman the other day and asked if he had met with the missionaries before. When he replied in the affirmative, my companion asked if they were elders or sisters. The old man said, "No, no, I remember them as being pretty young guys."

Not too long ago we were biking and saw a Hispanic man selling snow-cones. We stopped (more to talk to him than to actually buy a snow-cone) and asked how much they were. He said, "For you guys, $2. Or if you don't have it, don't worry about it. We thanked him and had our money ready and asked what flavor was best. While he whipped up some snow-cones we asked where he was from and you guessed it . . . El Salvador! He was from Soyapango, which is one of the cities I lived in. We went to pay him, but he wouldn't take it and just pointed up and said, "You guys preach of Jesus Christ. It is an honor." We got his phone number and he said he would love to have us over sometime.

We also were biking along and someone yelled, "Elderes!" We went back, and a Hispanic man introduced us to his family that was just getting into their car. His mom, wife, and one year old daughter were all there. His Mom told us that he was less-active and his wife was not a member. They had been meeting with the missionaries before, but had just moved and lost contact. They wanted to keep learning more but only had an english missionary's phone number, so they called but couldn't understand anything. They just didn't know how to find spanish missionaries again. And then! There we were. We passed right at the exact moment as we went from one lesson to another and they happened to be getting into their car. We were able to get them in contact with the missionaries in their area. They said we just fell right out of heaven into their path. Very cool.

Another cool experience happened in a lesson. We were teaching a lady whose son had recently joined the church. As we explained the Book of Mormon and read a little of the introduction, it was clear she had some doubts. We just had kind of a hard time helping her really connect and feel the spirit. Then my companion suddenly opened up the scriptures and read Alma 37:37 with her. I was a little confused because it wasn't in the plan and seemed kind of random. As we finished, though, she bookmarked it and carefully closed the book. She then teared up and told us how she had had a hard time believing the Book of Mormon, but that as we read that, she felt something special in her heart. That was a huge testament to me of the power of the Book of Mormon. Open it up.

So, missionary work isn't easy. Lots of hard experiences, letdowns, and disappointments. However, I know that this is God's work. He is aware of it. He guides it. He is a God of miracles, and He has a plan for all of us.

Elder Harris

Pictured is our service project from last week, a poorly taken picture of a truck with an incredible lift kit, and some vegan hamburger buns! Actually moldy ones that we found on top of the fridge. Yum.