Aug. 17, 2019 -- Tattoos, Gummy Bears, and Present Subjunctive

Greetings one and all,

Oh man, one more day until El Salvador! I am way excited. I enjoyed the MTC but am ready for something new. Get to fly out at 11:30 at night and get to El Salvador 11:30 the next day! Crazy.

Anyway, one unusual event was when for some reason we got emails early this week that we would have to move rooms. I am glad it happened now and not earlier, though, because we are close enough to leaving that we just aren't unpacking and are living out of our suitcases for a few days. We bid farewell to R5 and moved to the next building over, R3. They moved a bunch of Sisters out of R3, so all our bathrooms have "Women's" signs on them. Our new room is larger, though, and only has four beds! We lost Elders Madson and Cannon to another room, but I am enjoying the extra space. And we have our own desks and bigger closets! Kind of nice. Let it be known that some Elders are more organized than others, haha. I enjoy the organized lifestyle, but doesn't always work out with a big group. Here's a bunch of guys in our zone before the R5 move. There's some good guys in the MTC.

Anyways, we moved to our new room and immediately checked the outlet boxes like any good missionaries would do. First one: empty. Vents: empty. Second outlet box: score! We found a cough drop, some rocks, a Hi-Chew, an old Tide Pod, and, best of all, a tattoo sleeve! I have no idea why someone would have that in the MTC, but it is ours now until we leave it for the next elders. It is strange the things you do for fun in the MTC, though. Things like eating your cereal with chocolate milk instead of normal milk, seeing who can jump and hit their head on the ceiling, etc. I can finally dunk pretty consistently, but we are not allowed to grab the rim in the gym, so that is sad. Also, before my mission I never once used a shirt pocket. Now they are like the most useful things ever.

One of my favorite parts of the MTC is seeing people from back home. Andrew Anderson and Braedon Iverson both got here this week. Also got to talk to Jason Lawson today. Here's us hanging out in the laundry room.

Spanish is pretty good. We are learning all sorts of crazy things like present subjunctive, conditional, and imperfect tenses. Subjunctive is supposedly one the most difficult things in Spanish, so it is kind of cool that we are learning it. Not that we are that great at knowing when to use it or speaking without long pauses for thinking, but we do alright. They say that by the time you leave the MTC, the world or the government would consider you fluent in Spanish. It is way fun to be able to carry a conversation. I am 100% sure that the speed will be insanely fast compared to what we hear here, though, so hopefully we will survive. Grant Knight taught me a game that I taught my Spanish class called "Guess the Latino." Before class we choose a "Latino" that is only allowed to speak Spanish. At the end of class the teacher tries to guess who the Latino was. The strategy for us is for everyone to speak Spanish so the teacher can't guess. We got pretty good at it and would go our entire 3 hour class block without a word of English. We even learn new Spanish in Spanish. Anyways. The deal was that if we win, our teacher has to tell us a mission story, so we earned quite a few that way.

Anyways. Not too much more to write right now. Probably a bunch next week with arriving in El Salvador. The last of the old MTC buildings are being torn down as we speak. We decided the coolest thing ever would be getting two of the track-hoes they use and making them fight. They have different attachments like the classic bucket, wrecking ball, or a hole punching thing. Someday if I am incredibly lucky I'm definitely making this happen. Battle bots on steroids.

Oh, one last thing of a sort of spiritual note. We had our final practice lesson in Spanish the other day. Lately they'd been a little rough. You may remember the "bored and confused" lesson from last week. That was followed by the "uncomfortable" lesson and the "I didn't really feel anything lesson." The uncomfortable lesson was when we shared a scripture that started with a phrase like "Wo unto you for your unbelief." The part we were talking about was later in the verse where Christ talks about how with faith, anything is possible. They just thought we were calling her out for unbelief, though, so that was very awkward. Be careful with scriptures everyone. We were kind of despairing because we were really trying our best and felt like our Spanish was better than ever, so we just didn't know what to do. Anyways, we went into our last lesson a little afraid. We got there though, and talked and really connected with our person. It was great! We just felt happy and thought they did too. We crossed our fingers as we went to check our survey results. Lo and behold, she had marked EVERY GOOD FEELING AVAILABLE! Happiness, love, comfort, positive new thoughts, you name it. I'm not sure what changed, but it was amazing! I guess the lesson is that if you want people to get anything from your lesson, you really have to connect with them and show them that you care and are a real person, not just a badge. Tender mercy that we were finally able to nail another lesson. Best one yet, I think. I think she forgave us for the unbeliever thing too. We clarified that that part wasn't about her, haha, and I think she understood that we just don't know what we're doing.

These last couple pictures include me performing my favorite physical feat of balance. By the way, my other hidden talent is my Gollum impression. Everyone was very impressed with that. "My looovely, my sweeeeet, my precious!" Haha. We also have the Belt of Truth from the PV 10 priests quorum! Love that belt. If you are familiar with the armor of righteousness scriptures, one part is "Gird up your loins with truth." Thus, the belt of truth was born. The guys at home engraved it up for me and it is way cool. Thanks so much guys! The last picture is me with a gummy bear that has literally (I kid you not) been stuck to a lamppost here for over a week. I have no idea how it is still there. It's like magic.

Elder Harris

Aug. 10, 2019 -- The Defeat of the Iron Thieves

Let's jump right in...

So there we were, locked in what looked like might be eternal conflict. There are two irons on the floor, one next to our door and one on the opposite corner. For a while, all was peaceful. Then the Portuguese missionaries arrived. Our iron is obviously superior to theirs, but in an extreme show of disrespect the other missionaries stole our iron and switched it with theirs. We recovered what was rightfully ours, but they would steal it back. The iron changed hands multiple times every day. We knew that something had to be done. Finally our ingenuity prevailed and we padlocked the iron to our ironing board. That was the end of that. We emerged victorious. See Figure A:

I love hearing BYU’s bell tower whenever we’re outside. The bells play hymns and stuff every hour. Also, they are taking down the last old buildings of the MTC! Lots of construction. They’ve just been smashing one of the buildings with track-hoes, which is kind of awesome to watch. Also loud for studying.

Also, kind of crazy news, I am officially 1/24 of the way done with my mission! Kind of crazy. Also, I am going to El Salvador in eight days! I feel like I just got here, but I guess I’m just about done. A bunch of my English speaking friends that got here after me are gone, but this week I saw Jackson Allred, Jason Lawson, and a couple other people I recognize like Koby Pack. Always like seeing familiar faces. They're some good guys. And, small world, because I met someone who had Sam Allred as their HEFY counselor. Somehow I know lots of people that had him and they all think he's the coolest guy they've ever met. With all these new missionaries, though, the lines for meals and things are crazy long. We're talking wrap around the lunchroom and out the door, 45 minute kind of lines. I won't miss that in El Salvador.

Elder Gunderson got some Nerf guns and Noah sent me a hacky-sack, so we have some fun during our limited free time, haha. Elder Redford had his birthday the other day and some of the guys put balloons and streamers all over his bed and closet.

Also, very proud of myself, part of my running shoe on the top edge right where you put your foot in started pulling apart, and I sewed it back together! Looks pretty good if I say so myself. After 45 minutes of trying to get the thread into the needle, it was smooth sailing. (Why don't they just make the holes bigger? I don't know.) Look how self-sufficient I'm getting. It's ridiculous.

I hope somebody out there enjoys my stories. Lots of kind of strange or funny things just to keep it interesting. That’s kind of the fun stuff in the MTC, but just so people don't think we mess around all day, we have a lot of spiritual and meaningful things too.

For example, last week we decided to jump in with the MTC choir. They said things like “bases on the right and tenors in the middle,” which we did not understand, but we went and sat with the bases. We sang “Praise to the Man.” Choir is cool because we don’t just sing, but the director tells stuff about the song, and since this was Praise to the Man he told about Joseph Smith. The director is really cool. Reminds me of Uncle Mark for some reason. My favorite thing was when he was talking about Joseph taking breaks from translating to wrestle and he said “Can you image President Nelson standing up, stretching, and saying, ‘Come on, Dallin!’” Not sure if that is as funny in email form, but we thought it was great. Anyways, we sang it with a choir of 1100 people, and it was very powerful. Just felt a lot of love for Joseph Smith. He was a prophet. He was a good guy. Some people get upset because he wasn't always perfect, but I think it is really comforting. If God can restore His perfect Gospel through an imperfect man, surely he can help us have success in our little endeavors as we try to be better. We need to do our best, but God knows we'll make mistakes and fall short, and He can help us overcome that.

Also, we taught our first not-so-good lesson. We thought it was okay, but they do surveys after, and they marked bored and confused as their emotions. Too bad. Most of our other lessons have been pretty good though, so I guess it just shows that every missionary has his down day. It was a little frustrating, but prayer is a big help and I know Christ will comfort us even if he doesn’t take away our hard times. He has helped me to feel peace.

Here is a spanish joke to end, you know you're a pro if you can figure it out. (can't figure out how to get the accents, though)
Que hace el pez perezoso? Nada.

See you later,

Elder Harris 

 

Aug. 3, 2019 -- Gathering of Israel -- Another Episode in the Adventures of Abraham Harris

Hello hello,

Start with a story maybe?

So last week my roommates and I all went to shower after our exercise hour. I got out first and went back to the room to get dressed, but when I get to the door it is shut. Usually we just leave our door open, but somehow it closed and we were locked out with all our keys left in the room. So there we were standing around in our towels trying to figure out what to do. We decided to use the emergency phone to call the front desk and ask for a key, but it turns out you have to pick up the spare key yourself. This was good news, but was problematic because you aren’t supposed to go into that building without church clothes, so you can probably imagine that going in without any clothes would likely be frowned upon. Luckily Elder Ireland (who says “aluminium” and “care-a-mel,” along with “zed” for z) had some gym clothes with him, so he was able to go get the key, although without his companion. Close call, but after 15 minutes or so we got back in. It was kind of funny.

This Sunday my companion and I were asked to be the Sacrament coordinators, so we set up the Sacrament for our branch now.

We also for whatever reason have started a game in our room where we hide plastic spoons where the other companionship will unexpectedly stumble upon them. Our best one yet is when we put one inside Elder Redford’s body wash. He won’t find it until it starts to run low and the spoon rattles around, so hopefully we have the last laugh.

Also, bad news, it turns out I snore. Who knew? Not me. Anyway, I’m certainly not the only one, but my roommates confirm that I do indeed snore. Too bad.

The other day I finally had enough of putting my soap bar in the cardboard box it came in because the box would get all wet and the cardboard would get soggy or the soap would fall out, so I hatched a brilliant plan. I took a Lay’s Stacks can (thanks Cox cousins) and cut off the top and the bottom and then duck-taped them together so I had a handy little soap-sized container. This may be the greatest achievement of my life so far, so here is a picture:

This week was a little crazy because of all our assignments. We were ushers for the devotionals on Sunday and Tuesday, but we got some good seats from it. Every Tuesday we get up extra early and clean an entire residence building with the 8 other  guys in our district. My comp and I cleaned 80 sinks between the two of us, along with the counters they were in. Much respect for cleaning people. This Wednesday we were also hosts for new missionaries. It was weird that that was just us so recently. But at the same time we are over halfway done with the MTC! It’s surreal. We are like the old men of the MTC. At least middle-aged. Anyone, we got 720 new missionaries on Wednesday, so everything is crazy crowded. It was raining like crazy while we got them situated.

So speaking of the gathering of Israel, we got a knock on our door and opened it to have Elder Madsen and Elder Cannon walk right in with their suitcases and hangers of shirts. Apparently with all the new missionaries we had to combine rooms, so now there are 6 of us in a little room and Israel has been gathered. It’s a little crowded but it’s fun. We set up Nerf basketball hoops on both ends of the room.

Cameron Hunter and Kameron Scott are here! They are some solid dudes and I enjoy seeing them.

We taught our last lesson with our first guy. It was a lot of fun and it is so cool to feel a little bit of God’s love for others and see the Spirit direct lessons. At first we were really worried about holding a conversation for 25 minutes, but the time just flies. I am really confident that when you are living in a way that invites the Spirit, life is so much better. Another thought is that it is really easy to make the Gospel complicated, but it's really very simple. God loves us and gave us the commandments so we can progress and return to him and become like him. This is possible through Jesus Christ and repentance. It really is the Gospel of happiness. If we do what Christ asks, we will be happier in this life and in the life to come.

Anyway, just living the life here. Two and a half weeks left.

See you later,

Elder Harris

July 27, 2019

Hello once again,

Well, Spanish is going pretty well. See enclosed diagram:

Actually this week we taught our first full-blown lessons in entire Spanish. We had to teach a lesson for 25 minutes to a native Spanish speaker, so it was a little crazy. Most of the time they're already members of the church and are just acting, but I was still pretty nervous before that we just wouldn't be able to understand them in our lesson or that we wouldn't be able to get our point across. However, we said a prayer before and went for it, and it was amazing! We didn't speak perfectly by any means, but we could understand the things that our investigator told us. We taught him a little bit about God and Jesus Christ and how to pray. When we were bearing our testimonies at the end he started to tear up just a little bit. The Spirit was really strong and we were just so happy afterwards. The Gift of Tongues is definitely real, and God will help you out when you are doing His work. It made me think too that even though sometimes the mission is boring or hard or tiring, all it takes is one day like that to make everything worth it.

Let's see...in other news, we were just walking past the room of some of the other guys in our district on the way to our room and we found this:

A picture's worth a thousand words. We didn't do it, but we thought that whoever did was pretty clever. Made us laugh a lot. The other Elders are also about to lose their minds because our rooms look pretty much the same, but we keep getting perfect room inspection scores while they get "needs work."

On Sunday we also got to watch a talk given by Elder Bednar that they only show at the MTC called Character of Christ. It is a super good and powerful talk about how the defining element of Christ's character is that he turns outward when the natural man in us would turn inward. Thinking about that is powerful. It was a super good talk and supposedly everyone that goes to the MTC remembers it.

In other good news, we were playing basketball and I did a between-the legs layup on a 6' 8" elder! Not that I am that great at basketball, it was probably a lot of luck. But I think I earned some basketball respect. I want that on my end of life highlight reel.

Anyways, they keep us pretty busy here. Lots of studying and lesson planning. The first couple days are really long, but after that, time flies. Things that normally aren't that entertaining become incredibly fun. My companion's new favorite thing is using his zip-zip (badge reel) to drop his badge or a pen or something in front of someone and then suck it up when they go to pick it up.

The Church is true. Maybe someday I'll figure out how to make the lighting in my pictures normal.

Elder Harris

 (Below: Abe with his close friend Chipper.)

July 20, 2019 -- Desarrollando

Querido familia y amigos,

That subject line is my new favorite Spanish word to say. If my Spanish has not failed me, I believe it means "Developing."

Not so much is new after that crazy first week, so maybe we should just jump into some amusing stories? We were joking that our days are mostly the same and the only thing that is different is our conversations, and those are mostly the same because we know so little Spanish. Anyway, onward with some stories:

So the other day they talked to us (among other things) about page 33 of the handbook, which basically says "No Flirting," so now anytime someone in our district even says anything to an Hermana we tease them relentlessly (not in a mean way, we just all think it's funny and enjoy a good jest). So the other day Elder Redford (tall roommate with glasses) was standing in the lunch line and his comp Elder Ireland (the British one) had gone to grab a drink of water nearby and Elder Redford was just talking to some Sisters about where they were from and going. Part of the rule is that if your companion isn't part of the conversation with the opposite gender, it is probably a bad idea. So Elder Ireland comes back and says "Hey! I wasn't part of the conversation!" and then other guys in our district were joking about page 33. But the funny part of the story is that when Elder Redford was explaining the story to us later that night in our apartment, he said how the Sisters were right there during the anti-flirting campaign, so he was "Muy embarasado." If you don't understand, ask a Spanish speaker. We were dying of laughter. He thought it was hilarious as well once I said what it meant. We always laugh at ourselves really easily and love nothing more than a good joke because we mess up sort of frequently.

Another similar story happened to Elder Garvin, a fellow Salutatorian. Some hermanas happened to sit by his comp and him at dinner, and they talked for a minute. When the sisters got up to leave, Elder Garvin said "Encontado a conocerle!" which means "nice to meet you." The sisters did not speak Spanish and did not understand, so he tried again with what he thought was "mucho gusto" (also "nice to meet you") but accidentally said "me gusta." Unfortunately, the sisters understood this bit of Spanish and one of them said, "Doesn't that mean you like me?" Elder Garvin realized his mistake only too late and all his apologies and explanations fell on deaf ears as the sisters walked away. Good old Spanish.

One last story that was at least funny to me. At the end of the night the elevators for the teaching building are often packed (we're on the third floor) because everyone is going back to their rooms. We were waiting for the elevator to get from the sixth floor to us and I told Elder Gunderson, "We're getting on the elevator no matter what." The elevator door opens and there are probably twenty people on it. They immediately start pressing the door close button, but Elder Gunderson is undeterred by their shouts of "No!" and the horror in their eyes. He throws his arms in the air proclaiming "perfecto!" in a really long drawn out way. We got on the elevator. I don't know if they appreciated it, but we thought it was great. Now "perfecto" is one of the words we use all the time. Our other go-to is "Alla" (with accent over last "a," pronounced ah-yah) which means "way over there." We pretty much just point places we want to go or at objects and things. "Alla? Alla!" It's great.

Thanks by the way for the emails and mail! We pretty much live for those. Makes my day every time.

Elder Gunderson and I have been pumping iron a lot. Unfortunately, the gym doesn't have any barbells so you can't lift very heavy, but we still get some good workouts in. Lots of push-ups, jump-rope, curls, and core. We also played basketball for the first time. They were redoing the finish on it so we couldn't until now. It was super crowded. There are a couple guys here that are playing college ball. Proud to say that I held my own though and got a super solid block.

I ran into a ton of people this week, which was super fun! Chip, Adam Budge, Ryker Simmons, Zach Durbano, and Ian Swenson all got here Wednesday. Super fun to see a familiar face.

Another interesting thing is that they've been doing lots of construction taking down old buildings and putting up new ones. We'll walk to lunch and there is a nice covering over the sidewalk and then we walk out and it's gone. Crazy.

You can pay like $1.50 to have your patriarchal blessing laminated and shrunk down to fit in your scriptures or your pocket, so I did that. It's kind of fun to have it more accessible.

We like seeing all the crazy flags. There's a bunch of them.

Also, Elder Ireland always gets us going on these stories that he totally makes up. He had us convinced that he played piano for the queen and that later he went through an emo phase where he painted is fingernails black and dyed his hair. Both of these are false. Never trust an Englishman.

Maybe I will end here on a spiritual note. I thought I was good at scripture study, but we are focusing on really slowing down and taking meaning from each sentence or phrase. It makes the scriptures much more enjoyable. We have some good insights with each other going over it like that.

Also, one of our teachers, Hermano Gillman, told Elder Gunderson and I when we came into class a little early that in his two years of teaching that he has never seen anyone work as hard on memorizing Spanish as we are. That felt good. Se bautizara, anyone?

Anyway, I can't think of any other random details right now. Things are good.

Hasta luego,

Elder Harris

Also, here are some pictures. Us with Elder Cannon in the apartment, poorly lit picture of us on third floor balcony, and me with Adam Budge.

July 13, 2019 -- Chocolate Milk

Hola from Provo everybody!

The short version:

I am doing good and drinking lots of chocolate milk and like my comp. We speak Spanish. There are pictures if you don’t like to read.

The long version:

Things are super great down here. Saturday is our p-day, which is why I am writing. I probably won’t call home because the El Salvador missionaries are just about the only missionaries without phones at the entire MTC and in the mission field (which I do not mind at all).

So right from the get-go they had us go from table to table and pick up a bunch of stuff like maps and schedules and room keys and name tags and our MTC ID which gets $8 a week for supplies or laundry or snacks. Speaking of the ID cards, you can use the card to get a little thing that hooks to your pocket or belt loop and has like am elastic that you can pull your ID out on and it zips back in like an automatic yo-yo. We call them zip-zips or zzz-zzzzs and they are so fun. Best $2.08 I ever spent.

Haha, so anyway, from that we went to drop off our bags and then to class where we met our companion. My first companion went to the bathroom every half an hour and dug a tunnel with a spoon he stole from the cafeteria and then ran away. But after that I got my real companion. I got suuuper lucky in the companion lottery. My comp’s Elder Gunderson and he’s from Houston Texas. He’s going to play center for BYU football after the mission and is a solid guy. He talks to people really easily and has some really profound spiritual insight. The 12 people in our Spanish class make up our district and we do pretty much everything together and our rooms are all right next to each other’s. Except the hermanas. 6 of the Elders are going to El Salvador in the same mission, 4 are going to Barcelona, and the two sisters are going to Chile. So far the MTC has just been a lot of fun and I haven’t been homesick at all just because everyone in our district is so cool and we have so much fun together. Elder Gunderson’s a beast and I love the guy. There are some seriously cool people here. My comp and two other guys in our district are both taller than me by a long shot (6’7” and 6’8”), so there’ll be a bunch of big white guys in El Salvador, which is kind of funny.

So in room, it is me and Elder Gunderson along with Elder Redford and Elder Ireland. The only ironing board on our half of the floor is right next to our door, so that’s great. Elder Redford is from Austin and is super tall and funny. He reminds me a lot of Brandon Jascowiak. Elder Ireland is from England has a legitimate British accent that is just awesome. He says lots of things like jelly for jello and rubbish and half past six for 6:30 and today when we said it was sprinkling outside he said it was spitting. He brought a bunch of European chocolate that he shared that was very good. Anyway we laugh a lot and have fun.

I enjoy Spanish class and my high-school Spanish is starting to come back pretty well. Starting yesterday we are supposed to pretty much only speak Spanish all day even if we are not in class and ask permission to speak English, which is a little crazy but kind of fun. We have like three hours of class in the morning and then studying during the day and then another three hours of class before we get ready for bed. So far we’ve learned how to meet people and talk to them, reviewed pronunciation, and learned how to pray.

I also really enjoy the cafeteria. Lots of food and BYU chocolate milk for every meal. And you can eat creamies or ice cream sandwiches while you stand in line.

We got exercise time for an hour for the first time yesterday and get it every day but Sunday from here on out. We played soccer with our district even though it was blazing hot outside.

So far I have run into Ben Pobanz from school and Jared Nielsen from WHS hurdles, so that was fun to see a familiar.

Our group from Wednesday was the second biggest group that will enter the MTC the entire year. We all feel like we’ve been missionaries forever because our days are so packed it just feels like a long time. The buildings and campus are all pretty cool and much bigger than I realized.

The Spirit is super strong here. Not like overwhelming or crazy, but it is just very constant everywhere, like the force in Star Wars connecting everything, haha. One thing I thought about during study was when Nephi prayed to know about whether leaving Jerusalem was really the right plan and he said that the Lord softened his heart that he might believe. Sometimes I think the Spirit speaks to you that way. Not with thunder and lightning, but just by helping you believe.

The pictures are of my roommates in our room, some of our district in a meeting, and our whole district in the teaching building.

Anyway, I hope the email wasn’t so long that everyone is bored to death. If there is anyone that is not on the email list and wants to be, feel free to email me the address and I’ll add you. Conversely, if you would like to unsubscribe to Elder Harris’s emails, just let me know and I won’t cry too much.

See you later!

Elder Harris