Experience of the day: We are cleaning out the car we just stole from the other elders, and I heave a half full waterbottle towards the distant dumpster. It bounces of something inside and comes out. Just then a shirtless old man cruises around the corner on an electric wheelchair thing, and yells, "You tried!" before whipping by. So I did. So I did. Only in Las Vegas.
Well, I do believe that this has probably been one of the craziest weeks of my mission. Very busy! Let's jump in...
The night before transfers, Elder Parker and I had a cool lesson with a less-active member we hadn't met. She told us a little about how her sister had recently passed away, and it had been really hard on her. We were able to share a little bit about Christ's atonement, and how He knows what we're going through and makes it possible for us to be together again. She teared up a little as we talked and told us how every time she hits a hard spot, the missionaries always show up at the right moment. We're just out trying to help people and do good. I don't know if I've ever felt a strong prompting that I need to contact certain people or go certain places, but I have seen many times when we are just trying to be about God's work, and He takes us where we need to be.
To celebrate our time together, we broke out some glass bottle root-beers to end the night. Just as we did, our neighbor we made cookies for knocked on our door and brought us some ribs! It was awesome.
The next day, we headed over to the mission office and got there at 8:00 AM, where I bid a fond farewell to my son. I also met up with my previous zone leader and new companion, Elder Gastelum! We spent the morning helping with transfers. We were also going to be in a trio, so we had to get another bed. We first scooted our seats alllll the way up so we could fit the bed parts and mattresses in the back of our car and managed to get everything inside. When we came back, our brand new trainee was the first of all of them to show up! He is from Arizona and just drove here with his family. His name is Elder Shepherd. After a new missionary training meeting and shuttling more missionaries around, we drove home where we immediately had to fill out several reports, build our bunk bed without any tools so we could sleep that night, and go to several lessons. Luckily a member let us borrow some tools and we made a nice, wooden bunk bed.
My new companions are both great. Elder Shepherd did his work in the home MTC and has some great Spanish. He enjoyed theater before the mission, and was Crutchy in Newsies. Elder Gastelum went to Davis High, not too far away! We all get along really well. We've been trying to compact closet and dresser space and everything, because it's a little tight, haha. Right now Elder Gastelum has a little end table that's just below knee-height that he uses for his desk. I gave Elder Shepherd my office chair with the missing wheel in favor of a metal folding chair. At least no more falling out!
Being a zone leader has been crazy busy. I don't know if it's just the first week of transfers, or if it's always like this, but it's packed. I haven't had a morning without a meeting this entire week. With all these meetings and reports to fill out, it is hard to fit in all our lessons, studies, and things, and also try and give Elder Shepherd his extra new missionary training. As a result, we rarely have a meal that lasts over 30 minutes or so and we do lots of improvised study and planning sessions in the car while we travel. It makes you feel a little spread thin, but I like thinking about when Joseph Smith was in jail, trying to guide the church, away from his family, with the saints being driven from their homes. Sometimes I think we, like him, probably wonder, "If I'm doing the things I'm supposed to, why is it sometimes so hard? Why doesn't everything just go right?" And I don't know the answer. But in the end, Joseph Smith was able to have success leading the saints. Everything worked out, and he left a powerful legacy. I think there's a lot of growth that happens when God gives us a little more than we think we can handle. We learn to rely on him more.
On my first full day as a zone leader, we had a mission-wide zoom meeting, and the Spanish speakers all stayed on afterwards. The mission is making a big push to increase the Spanish work in Las Vegas. About 1/3 of Las Vegas is Hispanic, and there is a lot of work to do. The plan all the stakes and mission presidents are working on is to start doing english classes in every chapel across the entire valley, so we can run english class advertisements, and refer responders from anywhere to the missionaries that are already running an english class in their local chapel. It is a massive organizing effort and requires a lot of training. President asked if he could have the training video on teaching an english class by Sunday of that week. I thought to myself, "Wow, the poor elders that have to make that! Haha, that's no time at all." Turns out . . . we are those elders. So we spent a night planning the script and video filming for an entire training video so we could just show up, film, and get out. We went to a chapel in Henderson (incidentally, the SAME chapel where the recent inspirational message about ministering one on one was filmed) and filmed it all. It took like 3 hours to do, but we came home exhausted and ready to be done. Right as we sat down, we looked at the videos, and the microphone hadn't been plugged in correctly, making all the videos just pure static. We had to go all the way back and do the entire thing over again. It was kind of crazy, but we got a good english class training video made by the end, haha!
Elder Gastelum found some pre-hard-boiled eggs in our fridge and decided to try them out. He stuck them in the microwave while we were at our desks, and then as he goes to cut one open, we hear what sounds like a massive balloon pop. We turned around and egg is on the ceiling, the floor, the other side of the room, everywhere. It was super funny. I guess the lesson to be learned is that heated eggs can pop.
Halloween honestly didn't feel like it even happened. I didn't see any costumes or anything, and it was just a normal day. But, that night, this super awesome couple we are teaching invited us over for dinner and gave us a ton of pasta. Then, at the end, they gave us some ice cream and a piece of candy each, so we didn't go entirely without tradition! They were super nice.
Today we went to the store, and all the Christmas stuff is already out! I did enjoy seeing egg-nog and things. Feels pretty festive. You had better believe that I bought myself some limited edition snowflake Ritz.
We also went to SeaQuest again to show Elder Shepherd. I love going there for free. It's awesome. There's this one tank that reminds exactly of the fishing game on Wii Play. If you know what I'm talking about, kudos to you. The fish all look exactly like that. There's even a big old scaly one that's super long that's like the king fish.
So anyway. I only write about a couple things a week, but every second we are always calling people, teaching, and visiting members. We stay very busy. I love Dieter F. Uchtdorf's quote about "lift where you stand." We are all already in a certain circle of influence, and no matter how big or small or whatever calling it is, if we just try to strengthen and help those that we are in contact with, we will be doing our part to make a difference in the world. Being a missionary definitely makes me want to be a better member. There are so many people in every ward that just need a little love and support.
I know more than anything that this gospel is true. It is what is important. It stays the same in El Salvador and Las Vegas, English and Spanish, with giant pandemics and without. I know that the closer we stay to God, the better things always turn out.
Till we meet,
Elder Harris
Pictured is us with our late night movie writing, setting up on the new bunk bed, and celebrating Halloween with some awesome masks from Aunt Kathy.
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