Today we were at a park waiting for our district to arrive to play some spikeball. We started talking to a guy who asked if we would come sing a Christmas carol to his wife and say a prayer. They were nice and we were happy to oblige. As we were about to leave, the sister missionaries pulled up on the other side of the park. He asked, "Who are they? Are they your girlfriends?"
"No, of course not," I responded, "those are my three wives!"
Just joking, I did not say that last part. It would have caused some confusion about church policies, haha, but I thought the joke was kind of funny.
So this week I had my last ever day as a teenager! I thought I needed to do something awesome to go out with a bang, but after much thought, the only things I could think of was to either do (A) a lot of pushups or (B) a lot of squats. I compromised and did a lot of pushups on my last day of 19 and matched it with squats on my first day of 20. I guess that is how you celebrate on your mission.
The night before my birthday at around 9:30, the elders' quorum president called and told us that the next day the ward was doing a combined fast for the bishop, because he had just been taken to the hospital for COVID and was doing pretty bad. Now, I definitely shouldn't have, but at first I was kind of thinking, "Aw man! I was looking forward to some birthday food!" My big plan was to go to a pupuseria for lunch where they sell a dozen pupusas for $15. Now I wasn't sure how I was getting some pupusas. I wrestled with it for a little, but finally as I went to bed I humbled myself and figured, "Oh well, I'm sure if I fast, God will provide a good birthday."
So anyways, the birthday continued with the fast. And it was really good! The assistants called in the morning to sing happy birthday, and about a million of you guys sent me some awesome emails. Thanks so much! Lunch came and went and it looked like pupusas were going to have to wait for another day. We went to visit a member later on who asked us to come help with some service. When we walked in, they turned on, "Mañanitas," the classic Spanish birthday song, and they had a cake, balloons . . . and pupusas! Man, that family is the best. They were so nice. And so it was, that we both fasted and got pupusas! It is probably a lesson in humility for me. It is definitely very true that as we put God first in our lives, everything else seems to work out. And he uses normal people--like that awesome family--to bring little miracles to other peoples' lives.
We continue to teach the super cool family with the dad and three teenage kids. They are super awesome and really want to be baptized, but needed to develop some better scripture reading habits. We decided that to help them, we would do a lesson where we just read and talked about Lehi's dream. We were able to read it and compare everything to their lives. The next day we called the dad to check up, and he said, "Hey, last night I caught my son reading the Book of Mormon by himself!" We were thrilled! We talked to the oldest son, and he had previously been probably the least excited about baptism. Now he is on chapter 11 of 1 Nephi and told us how he notices that he wakes up feeling better every day when he reads it. He is such a solid guy. Nothing is more exciting than when people read their commitments.
The dad has also had some miracles as we help him overcome an addiction. We decided to start calling him every morning to check in and help him out. The first morning when we called, he said, "Man, I got the goose bumps when you called! It was just at the exact right moment."
Lately they reimposed more COVID restrictions, so right now only people without the priesthood can come to church, which is a little disappointing. It was so much fun to help get the whole ward excited about going and to see everyone there. But! Soon enough, soon enough.
The gospel is true here in Sin City.
Til we meet,
Elder Harris
Merry Christmas with my awesome LEGO nativity from Aunt Kathy, the Christmas lights from home, and the Christmas card we made.
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