We had an exciting moment last week. I was standing by the counter, munching on some cereal or something, and Elder Parker was across the bar facing me. Lately for some reason we have had a lot of fruit flies in the house. Suddenly Elder Parker has a look of extreme focus on his face. His eyes go wide, and he lets loose a maniacal laugh: "YES! HAHAHA!" He legs it around the counter with his evil grin and runs to our gas stove where an unfortunate fruit fly had landed on the burner. He turned it on and a blast of fire ridded us of one more fruit fly menace as he went down like a burning plane. Quite the excitement.
We are getting into the Halloween spirit! Today we went to the park with our district and carved pumpkins. We had a great time and made some good pumpkins. They were too good to leave, so Elder Parker and I had to take them home. We jumped on our bikes with a jack-o-lantern under an arm, and off we went! (somewhat slowly and shakily, haha). We ended up biking 2 miles home, but it was definitely worth it. Feeling pretty festive over here. I caught a couple glimpses of people cracking big old smiles as they saw us biking along.
Last week, the money on our cards didn't reset and we were just about to run out of water because we couldn't buy enough. One day, it looked like we were going to run out, and we would be doomed to the ominous Las Vegas tap water and kidney stones. Just then, a member came over and brought us a pizza for dinner. We talked for a minute, and then he said, "Hey, I have some cases of water in the back, do you guys need any?" He brought that over at the perfect time. We were very happy. Neat little experience.
This week I also got one of my greatest compliments ever. We had to call some missionaries we didn't know about a referral we were sending them. The missionary who answered was from Venezuela. After talking for a minute, he asked me, "¿Usted es un Chilango? Suena como es del DF." That means he was asking if I was a Mexico city native, haha. I explained that I was in fact a gringo from Utah, but I was very honored to have at least fooled one native into thinking I was a latino.
We had a funny phone call when we were calling people from our records. One phone number had a little kid pick up and yell, "WHAAAAT DO YOU WAAAAAAAAAANT!?" Haha, he didn't know who we were, but we talked to him and the little guy told us that his feet just really hurt, so he was having a bad day. After asking him about his favorite videogame, he seemed a little happier. It was just a funny start to a phone call with him yelling his little lungs out.
We have enjoyed teaching one guy that is just super cool and is progressing a lot towards baptism. He is the one who we invited to be baptized and came to church. This week out of the blue he just sent us a text that said, "I want to tell you guys that you are my best friends in the whole United States." Just melted our hearts. He is the best. He showed us this crazy mariachi version of "I Am a Child of God" that he made on the piano.
Another awesome experience was with our next door neighbor. They are just this super happy and cool family. (They are the same ones with the dad who after our first lesson said, "I just feel GOOD!") We always see the little girls who are 7 and 8 running back and forth down the hall in their flip flops (or roller skates or scooters, depending on the day). They always say funny things. We made them cookies once, and the next day they yelled to us, "Thanks for the cookies!" and "Cool bike!" Another time they asked us what we do for work. I said, "Nothing! We just do this alllll day!" They seemed to mull it over a little before saying, "Oh! That's weird!" and going about their business. Anyways, we went over and read about when Christ came to visit the Americas. It was a good lesson, and it is just fun to have all the kids there. Afterwards, the dad was just shaking his head and said, "Man, we were just talking about that prick in your heart, and I just had that. That's why I'm smiling."
As we were biking home one night, we saw a sign that said, "Choose Joyfulness" at a bus-stop and thought we'd snag a picture with it. As we did, we saw a man sitting on the bench. He was a sort of a broken looking man. Probably homeless. Been through a lot. He kind of hunched over and seemed to try and shrink into himself. We introduced ourselves and talked for a minute, but he was pretty quiet. We were about to go, but this humble man looked up and shyly said, "I know a little about the Mormons. I am from Illinois, close to Nauvoo." We talked some more and he mentioned he had read a little in the Book of Mormon before. We asked if he would like one, and he said, "Yes, yes, I would." I could tell it meant a lot to this man, just to have somebody notice him and ask his name. Take a minute to care about him, even though we really didn't do a whole lot. A little more and off we went. We pedaled away and a soft, "Thank you! Have a nice night! God bless!" trailed after us. Hopefully we brought a little drop of light to someone having a hard time.
The other day someone told me that we couldn't be right because there is just no evidence that God exists. I just have to smile and shake my head. It blows me away every day how involved he is in our lives. I feel bad for those poor people that don't want to look around and see it! He is always there.
Till we meet.
Elder Harris
Pictured are several things including how are normal carpet looks compared to the fresh carpet under a mat!
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